


AKA Puzzle Pieces

by angel_deux



Series: The Sinner and the Saint [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comedy, F/M, Fluff, Sequel to Between The Sinners and the Saints, theres also a third one that's been finished for months oops, which i wrote forever ago and then forgot to edit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2018-09-15 13:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9236615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_deux/pseuds/angel_deux
Summary: Jessica Jones is not an easy friend to have. And Karen's not even really sure if she can call her a friend. But Jessica is a good person to have in your corner in a crisis, which is good, because one of Frank's enemies makes a sudden reappearance.





	1. You The Chick That's Banging the Punisher?

**Author's Note:**

> This (and the 3rd story in the series) is going to be a lot shorter than Between the Sinners and the Saints, and it will have more of a comedic tone. I hope you enjoy!

Meeting Jessica is kind of like getting hit by a bus, in that it’s a surprise, and it’s sudden, and it’s not painful until a little later, once you’re done processing that you’ve been hit by a fucking bus.

“Hey, Blondie,” she says, striding up to Karen. She’s wearing a bulky black coat, a mammoth-sized gray scarf, and skinny jeans that are absurdly tight on her pipe cleaner legs. She stops and tilts her head to one side, looking Karen up and down. “You the chick that’s banging The Punisher?”

“Ummm,” Karen replies, alarmed and confused, keys halfway in the door to Frank’s place. “No? What a ridiculous…I mean, what a crazy thing to- to accuse someone of?”

“Relax. I’m not a cop or anything. He’s dying at my place.” At Karen’s gasp, she rolls her eyes. “Not _dying_ , sorry. I was being dramatic. He’s just a little mangled.”

“Take me there,” Karen says, and Jessica narrows her eyes at her.

“So I’m guessing that’s a ‘yes’ on the banging thing, then, right?”

* * *

 

It’s only been a month since Karen became, well, “the chick who’s banging the Punisher”. But for like two weeks before that, she was “the chick who’s recovering from near death, and while technically banging the Punisher _would_ be an option, he’s too afraid he’s gonna kill her by accident”. A couple of months since she became “that legal assistant turned reporter who’s weirdly obsessed with the Punisher”. It’s been a whirlwind of a year for Karen Page, is the point.

* * *

 

“What happened?” she asks. The black haired woman shrugs dramatically, hands shoved deep into her pockets.

“He was being a dick, so I kicked his ass.”

If she’s expecting an argument or a fist-fight for Frank’s honor, she came to the wrong person.

“That sounds like him,” Karen admits with a sigh. “How’d you know about me?”

“Turns out he’s less of a dick after you kick his ass and explain to him that you’re not trying to kill the guy you’re beating up on, and anyway, he deserves it. Your main man decided he liked me after he realized my victim was a serial rapist.”

“Oh, yeah, he _does_ like that,” Karen says, tucking her hair behind her ear and unavoidably smiling.

“Doesn’t like that I didn’t let him kill the guy, but like…I gotta live in this neighborhood, right? I got a reputation.”

“I’m sorry, I just realized I haven’t…I’m Karen Page. I’m a journalist with the Bulletin?”

“Oh yeah? Sorry, I don’t read the newspaper. I’m, uh. Sure you’re very good. Jessica Jones, PI.”

“Oh, cool!”

Jessica shoots her a side-eyed look. She looks like the emoji Ellison sends Karen every time she says she’s “busy” or “has a date” because while he does not know for sure that she is banging the Punisher, he has enough information to make an educated guess.

“Was that sarcastic?” Jessica asks finally.

“No! I mean it; that sounds cool! I didn’t know people still did that. It seems like something exclusively from movies, you know?”

Jessica looks at her again as she leads Karen down into an alleyway, her mouth in a half sneer and half smile.

“Oh, God,” she groans. “You’re Bambi, you’re actually Bambi. And you’re banging the Punisher. God, what a world.”

* * *

 

Jessica lives in an apartment that’s almost shittier than Frank’s. In a neighborhood that’s very close to Frank’s and is also approximately as shitty. Karen’s a little impressed. She’s gotten better at fighting, knows how to stick up for herself, but Jessica walks around with so much more confidence than she has ever been able to manage.

“Found your girlfriend,” Jessica announces as she strides into the apartment-slash-office. “She’s _wayyy_ too cute for you.”

Frank grumbles a response from the other room – which predictably sounds like an affirmative – and Karen passes Jessica around the corner, eager to see. She lets out a sigh of relief when he’s sitting up, leaning on an old table, stitching up his arm.

“Frank. What the hell?” she asks. “Why didn’t you call me? I thought you were seriously hurt!”

“Uh, yeah. That’s my bad,” Jessica says. “I kinda destroyed his phone in the fight.”

“Destroyed a lot of things. Like my fuckin’ ego,” Frank growls, though it’s a little admiring, and Jessica grins in response, only slightly feral. Karen goes to him, putting down her purse and shrugging out of her coat, tying her hair back.

After all, a girl’s got to be prepared to handle a few scrapes if she keeps with the kind of company Karen keeps with. She’s kind of a pro.

“He’s got a nasty gash on his back. Didn’t want to do it myself, and he sure as shit can’t, so he said to get you. Said you should be at his place.”

“I was just getting there,” Karen tells him as he hands her the needle and she runs her fingers quickly through his hair to reassure herself he’s okay. “Dinner with Foggy ran late.”

Foggy who, she now remembers, she’s supposed to text when she’s “home safe”, aka in her own apartment, aka not hanging out with a guy who’s wanted by every cop and criminal in the city.

“You text him yet?” Frank asks, and she sighs, reaching for her phone.

“Hey, Foggy,” she reads aloud as she types. “Home safe and am not fucking The Punisher. Love, Karen.”

“I’d believe it,” Jessica says as Frank snorts. Jessica takes a swig of booze from a bottle she pulls out of nowhere. Karen writes the actual text – _home safe_ , sans the blatant lying. On second thought, she deletes the _home_ part too. So now it’s just _safe!_ Like she’s an umpire.

“You in a sharing mood?” Frank asks, gesturing to the bottle. Jessica sighs but passes it over anyway.

“He like this all the time?”

“He’s _The Punisher_ ,” Karen points out, threading the needle. “Not Willy Wonka.”

“Ew, that guy was a creep anyway. Always freaked me out.”

“Yeah, I was always more of a Beauty and the Beast girl myself,” Karen says. Frank gives her a pained, irritated look. Her favorite one; like he’s smelling something unpleasant. He used to make it when she cared too much and he didn’t want her to, but now that he’s sort of accepted her presence in his life, he makes it when she makes bad jokes.

“Stupid,” Jessica says, but she snorts into her bottle. “Anyway, now you guys can get out of my apartment. And seriously, asshole. Don’t mess with me next time.”

“Yeah, not gonna make that mistake twice.”

* * *

 

The next time Karen sees her, Jessica is standing in the lobby of Foggy’s temporary firm (turns out getting a business off the ground after it’s already been buried is tough, so Foggy’s sticking it out at this place until Matt can devote more time to work and less time to helping Elektra figure all her weird shit out). Foggy’s regaling Karen with a creepy encounter he had with a client’s wife, and Karen’s too busy laughing at him to notice Jessica until they’ve practically walked into each other.

“Hey, Bambi,” Jessica drawls. She glances at Foggy, unimpressed. “Who’s this? Gaston?”

“No! No, this is Foggy, and he’s…he’s more of a Wadsworth?”

“Are you making Beauty of the Beast references? And why am I _Wadsworth_? Isn’t he the chubby clock? That seems a little…” but he trails off, head cocking as he puts the pieces together. Because Foggy gets a bad rap for being a little overzealous and a little distracted, but he really is a clever guy. “Wait… _Karen_!”

Jessica grins, says “oops” in an extremely savage tone, and then she waves a cheeky goodbye.

“Oh my _God_!” Karen shouts after her because, well, what the _fuck_?

* * *

 

Which is how she ends up sitting in a diner with Foggy at one in the afternoon, well past his lunch hour is supposed to be over.

“And I guess I just sort of hoped it would happen organically!”

“Organically? What does that even mean in this context, Karen? I walk in on you two snuggling up for movie night? You invite me out for a double date and it’s like, _oh, this handsomely bruised man in the baseball cap looks awfully familiar_!”

“I know, Foggy! I’m sorry. But it wasn’t easy to bring up! Especially not with Matt…”

“What, _Matt_ doesn’t know?”

“No! I didn’t want to deal with that inevitable argument if it crashed and burned before it started.”

“How long?”

“Um. Since I was in the hospital.”

“Well. Nothing like a near death experience to get a girl in the mood, I guess.”

“Come on. Don’t be mean. Matt’s reconnecting with his resurrected ninja ex, you’re refusing to admit you’re dating Marci, why can’t I have a weird, incomprehensible relationship too?”

“Frequent booty calls isn’t dating, first of all.”

“It’s dating if you get dinner first.”

“Hm. Okay. So you do have a point there. But Marci isn’t running around, killing guys for selling weed on the corner.”

“Oh, come on. You know he doesn’t do that.”

“Well, whatever. Child molesters.”

“By all means, go to bat for the child molesters, Foggy.”

“Don’t…hey. Don’t be mean about this. I’m allowed to be shocked and annoyed by this!”

“And I’m allowed to be defensive!”

Foggy looks at her for a long time, and he finally sighs, presses the heels of his hands to his eyes.

“It’s a mistake,” he says finally. And Karen thinks of Frank’s words to her when she was in her hospital bed and he was trying to find a way to tell her.

“But it’s my mistake to make,” she says. And Foggy nods.

* * *

 

She means to tell Matt. She knows she has to tell Matt. But life just sort of…gets in the way.


	2. I'm Being an Asshole

Jessica shows up at the Bulletin like it’s nothing, flops down in the chair in front of Karen’s desk.

“Nice office. How long you been working here?”

“Not long enough to have earned it,” Karen admits, eyebrows arched in anticipation over her laptop. “Inherited it, really. What do you want?”

“I need a favor.”

“Says the woman who outed me to my friend.”

“And kicked your boyfriend’s ass.”

“He’s not…we don’t…”

“Ugh, I get it. _We’re not labeling it_ or whatever. God. Why is everyone so predictable today?”

“And you want a favor?”

“Need. I’ve got a client who says she was attacked outside a nightclub by two guys who took a blood sample and then ran away. I’m wondering if this is isolated or if there are any other incidents I should know about.”

“Blood sample?” Karen asks thoughtfully.

“Yeah. Look, I’m sorry about being an asshole with your friend. But I didn’t want to ask the cops and I know you do the crime shit at this paper, so…”

And Karen has always been really bad at saying no to people, and she also _really_ likes a mystery, and people grabbing blood samples from a random woman is a hell of a mystery.

“Why’d she hire you? Why not go to the cops?”

“She’s in the kind of business where cops don’t tend to take you seriously, if you know what I mean.”

“I do.” Karen scribbles a note. “Okay, so police reports aren’t gonna cut it.”

“They rarely do.”

“I’ll go through them anyway, but if the other victims are anything like your client, I doubt they reported it. I know a detective, though. He’s good. And I mean, he’s a good guy, not just a good detective. If anyone’s come to him with anything like this, he’ll remember it. I’ll also check with a source I have who used to work at Metro General. She can see if anyone reported it there. I’ve also got a few sources I can check with on the, uh, shadier side of things.”

“Damn. Karen Page, hanging out with criminals. How’s your fuck buddy feel about that?”

“We have an agreement not to talk about them. He knows a couple of them are off-limits ‘til they do something unforgivable.”

“That makes sense. That how you can deal with what he does?”

Karen glances at the open door, but no one’s close enough to be listening.

“I deal with what he does the way I deal with what anyone else does,” she says lowly. “By trying to empathize.”

Jessica snorts and leans back in her seat, kicking her feet up on Karen’s desk. Which is honestly exactly what Karen expected her to do, based on every interaction they’ve had so far. Karen’s apparently not the only one who’s predictable.

“What about his victims? You empathize with them?”

“I do. But I also empathize with _their_ victims. Their victims’ families.”

“Touché.”

“And not to pull this card? But considering you’re on a very short list of people who know my _fuck buddy_ is still out there, I did my research. And seems like if anyone would understand his position on certain people not deserving to live, it would be you.”

For a second, she thinks she might have gone too far. Jessica looks at her with narrowed eyes and a half-open mouth that looks ready to deliver _some_ sort of verbal beatdown.

But then: “yeah. I get him. But I’m a broken piece of shit.”

“You really _do_ get him, don’t you? Pretty sure he’s said that exact thing to me fifteen times.”

“And you stick around anyway?”

“Of course I do. He’s not a broken piece of shit at all. Full of shit, maybe.”

“Yeah. You seem the type not to listen to reason and cling to someone even if their mess gets all over you.”

“Sounds like you have experience.”

“You wouldn’t _believe_ how much. Tried to get rid of these two wonderful assholes more than a few times. Sounds like your boy and I will have some common ground to bitch about next time we find ourselves crossing paths.”

“I’d love to see that. Just a warning, though: he doesn’t drink much. Bigger fan of coffee.”

“I can work with that. Irish coffee. Easy.”

“Right,” Karen laughs.

“Just never get it when people like you end up in the orbit of people like us. Sorry if I came on too strong.”

“You’re not. And if you think you’re the first person to try and have this conversation with me…”

“What, your six thousand friends all know about you and your fuck buddy?” Jessica asks pointedly. Karen’s not sure if she knows just _how_ laughable Karen’s social life is, or if she’s just commenting on Karen’s clear cageyness when she looked over her shoulder at the office, but either way, it stings.

“Touché,” she says.

“I’m being an asshole.”

“And asking for a favor.”

“Yeah. I do that. You’ll get used to it.”

“Gotten used to a lot of things,” Karen laughs, but it sounds strangled. Broken. Jessica hears it.

“C’mon. Let’s go get a drink.”

“It’s three in the afternoon.”

“And when we drink for two hours, it’ll be five, and acceptable. Come on.”

Karen is skeptical. But she really _does_ need a friend, and she can explain this off to Ellison as a source. So she shrugs. Mutters _fuck it_. Gets up and follows Jessica to the door. That’s when Jessica starts to really like her.

* * *

 

“Saw your new friend today,” Frank says early one morning, fresh out of the shower. Karen’s still rubbing sleep from her eyes, and she catches him looking down at her with something that might be called a goofy smile on any other man.

“My new friend?” Karen asks, laughing. “You must have me confused for someone else.”

“Mm. Dark hair. Beat the piss out of me that one time.”

“ _Oh_ , Jessica! Not sure I’d call her a friend. Though she did ask for my help with something. I’m doing some PI work.”

“Hope she’s gonna pay you for it.”

“She better.”

Toweling off his short hair, Frank sighs with contentment as he crawls into bed beside her, exhausted after a long night of killing. Sometimes she asks him about it. Asks him for numbers. Names. Crimes. But tonight, he’s not bleeding from anywhere, he doesn’t look like he picked up any new bruises. Aside from a yellowing one near his temple, he looks almost like a regular person. Like someone who doesn’t get beat up and shot at. She pulls him close and kisses him. Wraps her arms around him and soothes him with her lips along his jaw. His chest rumbles low with contentment as he breathes in the scent of her shampoo.

“Doesn’t look like she beat you up again,” Karen says with a grin against his cheek, which has him laughing and rolling her under him. Propped up above her, he looks almost _happy_ , and it’s one of those aching moments where she could, if she lets herself, forget who they both are. Just Karen and Frank. Just two people who care about each other.

“Don’t think she didn’t try. In her defense, she was drunk. I pulled her off this kid she was beating on.”

“ _You_ stopped _her_ from killing someone?” Karen pushes her head back into the pillow to get a better look at him, narrowing her eyes mockingly. “You feeling okay?”

“Funny. The kid hit her with his car door because she lurched off the street into him.”

“So she was _really_ drunk.”

“Yeah. She got a problem.”

“She was mind-controlled by a superpowered serial killer. Of course she has a problem.”

Frank grunts with agreement and leans down to kiss her again. Karen feels all the tension unwinding from her muscles when he does it. When he surrounds her with himself, with the scent of blood and gunpowder that never really leaves him.

_I love you_ , she thinks. Not even on the surface, not consciously, but somewhere down deep where she can continue to pretend it’s not there, that it wasn’t said, that it isn’t felt.


	3. Frank, I Know Everything

Karen doesn’t have many female friends anymore. She did in high school. She had loads of female friends, from best friends to temporary besties to classmates she sat next to and made the best of difficult classes with. But since moving to the city, all she has is Matt and Foggy and Frank. Elektra, when she’s around, but she’s not really the kind of person you go to when you’re having an emotional crisis.

Neither is Jessica, actually, but Claire is the only other person Karen can think of, and Karen’s too scared to call the number on the post-it note for anything other than a genuine medical emergency, so it’s Jessica that Karen goes to see in the middle of the day, barely holding herself together.

Jessica isn’t in her office, but her friend Malcolm lets Karen in and tells her Jessica will be back soon. He texts Jessica for her, offers her something to drink. He’s as eager to please as Karen is eager not to impose, so they do that awkward ‘no, I insist’ dance around each other until Jessica makes it back.

And Karen just sort of melts. Or maybe it’s an implosion. Or an _ex_ plosion. It’s something that presses against her ribcage and comes out as a sudden stream of terrified sobs.

“What? What happened?” Jessica asks, looking and sounding like she’s trying to decide between concerned and furious that this chick she barely knows came all the way across the city to cry all over her.

“I think I might be pregnant,” Karen manages, and then she starts crying again.

“Oh, fuck this,” Jessica mutters, and she digs out her phone. “Hey. It’s me. I need you here _yesterday_. Get to the office.”

* * *

Trish Walker practically kicks the door open when she arrives, carrying a taser and wearing sunglasses on top of her head. She’s wearing a scarf that might just be more expensive than anything Karen has ever owned. She arches her eyebrows at Jessica, who’s pacing in the middle of the room, and Karen, who’s still crying, and Malcolm, who’s sitting beside Karen and rubbing her back.

“What the hell is this?” Trish asks. Takes a better look at Karen. “You’re Karen Page, right? From the Bulletin?”

“Network later, Patsy. Bambi thinks she’s pregnant and she’s freaking out.”

“I’m sorry. I told her it wasn’t…I just needed somewhere to…” Karen says weakly as Trish’s eyebrows climb even higher and she looks at Jessica for answers.

“I don’t know how to deal with this shit!” Jessica protests, but Trish just rolls her eyes.

“You do _fine_ when you’re not being a giant baby.”

“I didn’t know who else to go to,” Karen says tearfully, and Trish sits on the coffee table across from her, reaching for her hands.

“It’s fine, sweetie. Jessica’s just a bit of a grouch about these things. It’s probably better she called me.”

“Oh, shut up,” Jessica says, sitting on Karen’s other side. Karen is surrounded now, Malcolm still rubbing her back, and she feels calmer. Slowly, but calmer. Still a roar of panic in her brain, wondering what she’s going to do about this, but her sobs subside.

“Now, tell me what the problem is. Are you morally opposed to abortion? Adoption? Scared of pregnancy? Don’t know if you’re ready? There are a thousand reasons to be upset that you’re pregnant, but I can try and talk you through all of them if you want.”

“She’s a talk show host,” Jessica says with a certain note of pride.

“Yeah, I know,” Karen says, a helpless laugh escaping her. “Never thought I’d be going to Trish Walker for advice.”

“It always seems more complicated than it is,” Trish promises, squeezing Karen’s hands.

“I don’t know about that. Bambi here is banging The Punisher.”

Karen sighs and hangs her head, disbelieving.

“You can’t just keep _telling_ people that,” she practically wails.

“Why not? It’s awesome! You know how many people in this city would bang The Punisher?”

“I probably would,” Malcolm says, clearly trying to cheer her up. Trish, though, seems to understand Karen’s distress now, and she makes a sympathetic noise at the back of her throat.

“Oh wow,” she says, leaning back. “You’re right. This _is_ complicated.”

“I mean, it’s not _that_ complicated,” Jessica argues. “I’m pretty anti-kid usually, but imagine a little blonde girl in a skull vest, out there rescuing puppies.”

Now _she’s_ trying to cheer Karen up, and just the attempt does the trick a little, but Trish understands.

“Jess, tell me you at least know who The Punisher _is_.”

“Yeah. Frank Castle, right? Marine guy they had that big trial for. I watch the news.”

“No, you read the closed captioning sometimes when you’re really, really bored in a waiting room. Frank Castle’s family was gunned down in front of him. Wife and two kids. That’s why he started killing gangsters. It was the biggest story last year! I had like three weeks of shows about it!”

“Oh. Shit.”

“Yeah, _oh shit_. The guy watched his family die. And you’re worried, Karen, that he won’t want to go through it again?”

“Yeah.”

“But on the other hand, he might. So you can’t just _assume_. At least not without feeling like an asshole, taking care of it and not telling him.”

“Yeah.”

“That would be a betrayal.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“But you really don’t know how to have this conversation. How do you ask a man who’s lost two children, who has been brought to the brink and who has turned into this walking symbol of vengeance because of what was done to his family if he’s ready to put himself through the kind of happy memories that led to his downfall in the first place? If he’s ready to risk that kind of pain happening again.”

“It was hard enough to get him to think it was worth the risk of losing me,” Karen says weakly. “You’re really good.”

“I’ve talked people through a lot of problems,” Trish says, modesty waving off the praise. “What do _you_ want?”

“I don’t- I don’t know. On one hand, I’m kind of a disaster. I don’t know if I even _want_ kids. And Frank certainly isn’t…most nights, he comes home bleeding, and even if I could ask him to stop, even if I thought he _would_ stop for me, I wouldn’t.”

“You’re Team Punisher?” Malcolm asks with surprise.

“She’s fucking the guy, Malcolm! What do you think?”

“No, I mean, I get it!” Malcolm says defensively to Jessica, still rubbing Karen’s back. “I’m just surprised.”

“Statistically, women and minorities overwhelmingly agree with at least the concept of ensuring that the more violent criminals aren’t…”

“All right, relax. We get it. You did three weeks worth of shows on the guy. Bambi, when you came in here, you said you _thought_ you were pregnant.”

“Three positive tests. I made an appointment for later today. I just started panicking after I hung up the phone. I couldn’t even breathe.”

“Well, okay. Let’s go to the appointment before we totally panic, right?” Trish says.

* * *

When Trish says ‘we’, Karen’s sure she means the hypothetical ‘we’. As in ‘we’re having a baby’ or ‘we’ve got a great shot at the title this season’. But Trish bullies Jessica and Malcolm into her car, and she has her driver take them all to Karen’s doctor, and she even manages to get the appointment time moved up, even though Karen tells her about a thousand times that it isn’t necessary.

Karen is a little overwhelmed. But in a sunshiney, pleasantly full kind of way. This woman barely knows her, and she’s helping her like this. Going out of her way to help her.

And then…

“I’m not pregnant!” she says again, for the fifth time, holding up her glass and toasting Trish and Jess, who are enjoying her drunken displays. Jess is sprawled in her tattered office chair, Trish is perched on the end of the desk, and Karen lies on the couch and takes another gulp and thanks the universe for huge favors.

“Thank _God_ you’re a fun drunk,” Jess proclaims.

“Says the woman who usually _isn’t_ , Trish teases. Jess rolls her eyes and makes a dramatic gagging motion that Karen giggles at.

Trish’s car drops her off at her place, and she climbs into her bed and breathes in the sheets that still smell a little like gunpowder from the last time Frank was here. She falls asleep with a blissful smile on her face. It feels really wonderful to have friends who aren’t always so busy saving other people. Who can help her just because she’s feeling nervous or scared.

* * *

Which becomes less of a good thing when Frank comes to her place about a week later, two in the morning, climbing in through her fire escape, dripping blood. And she’s so relieved because she hasn’t heard from him in three days except cursory texts with nothing but thumbs up emojis when she asks if he’s okay (the _asshole_!). He crawls in her window, stumbling a little, and she sits up in bed, squinting at him in the dim light from the streetlights outside. She closes her mouth against any admonishments that she wants to lay on him, and she reaches for the first aid kit that she keeps by the side of her bed, but he shakes his head and sits down on the edge of it, next to her. She bites her lips together as the blood drips onto her new comforter.

“I’ve been an asshole,” he says.

“Well, I’m not gonna argue there,” she replies, but it’s a question too.

“I just needed…shit. I don’t know. Time? Needed to do some work to clear my head. It was bad for a while.”

“You don’t have to explain that to me,” she reminds him. “I understand if you need time. This isn’t exactly a normal relationship, Frank. But I’m going to reserve my right to be a little annoyed about it.”

“That’s fair.”

A long silence. The kind she’s usually comfortable with, but it’s weirdly weighty this time, and she sits up to get a better look at him. He looks so hollow that she reaches out, brushes her fingers along the edge of his hair, resting her index finger against the scar in his temple. It works, usually. Calms him down. Reminds him who he is and who she is and why they’re doing this. But he closes his eyes this time, leans forward, breaking contact, resting his hands between his knees off the edge of the bed. His trigger finger isn’t twitching as bad as she’d expect. But his hands clench into fists and then release, and he doesn’t look at her.

“Frank, what is it?” she asks finally, and he looks up at her, and she sees how exhausted he looks. But not only that – he looks terrified.

“I been thinkin’ about it. And when she told me, I was…I didn’t know what to do. Still don’t, really, but I know I’m not gonna…I know I still…I’m not gonna leave or anything. I’m gonna be here for whatever you need. But she said, to be a father, I’d have to…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Frank! Slow down. What are you…oh my _God_ , Jessica!”

“What? Are you not…?”

“I’m going to _kill_ her!”

“Are you serious?” Frank growls, staring out the window like he can see Jessica out there somewhere, cackling.

“Are _you_ serious? You avoided me for three fucking days because you thought I was pregnant?”

The tables turned now, Frank’s ears turn scarlet the way they do when he gets embarrassed or called out.

“I just needed…”

“Such an asshole!” she exclaims, throwing her hands up. “I thought you were dead! I thought you were mad at me! And she…when I thought I was pregnant, I went to her in _tears_ , and she helped me, and she goes and does something like this!”

She reaches blindly for her phone.

_FUCK YOU_ , she texts.

“You thought?” Frank asks, and she looks up at him over her phone screen, brow furrowed. He still looks a little lost, and she feels bad for yelling at him, even though he deserves it. She puts the phone back down and sits up, moves closer to him.

“I’m not, though. I took three tests, and they were all positive, so I went to the doctor. But I had like a panic attack or something. I don’t know.” She rubs her eyes, leans against his shoulder. Needing to prove she’s not _that_ angry or something. “I didn’t know where else to go, so I went to her. She seemed like a better choice than Foggy or Elektra at the time.”

“You went to her.”

Still not understanding, she figures maybe he’s annoyed she went to someone else about this, and she shrugs moodily.

“Can you blame me? Look at how you reacted.” He grunts; that’s true. “Anyway, I didn’t want to even bring it up unless I was one hundred percent sure, and the doctor answered that question for me.”

“Why didn’t you…?”

He trails off, and she prompts, “mention it?” Another grunt. “Because I knew exactly how you’d react. You’d shut down.”

“Yeah.”

“Which you did.”

“…yeah. Shit. I’m- I’m sorry.”

It sounds weird coming from him. Frank’s someone who apologizes with actions, not words. Buy her coffee, buy her flowers, kill someone who threatened her, go down on her. His usual arsenal of moves to get back in her good graces. A verbal apology is weird for him. Weird for them both.

“Good,” she says. “You should be.”

“Hey, I’m just…”

“I’m not mad. I’m just…” _disappointed_ is on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t bring herself to say it. “I knew it wouldn’t be an easy conversation. I don’t even know…even thinking about it now. You should have seen me.” She laughs a little self-consciously, pulling her knees up to her chest and looking at him with a soft smile. “I was a _mess_. Jess had to call in her friend as backup. It was so _embarrassing_.”

“That’s it though, isn’t it? Shouldn’t make you feel that way. Shouldn’t make you so scared to tell me that you go to someone you barely know, cryin’ your eyes out. That’s what I’m for.”

“You don’t scare me,” she says. Reaches for him again. “It was just…I didn’t want to hurt you.”

He leans away from her touch again, and she’s tired and frustrated and just wants him to crawl beside her, someone else’s blood on his clothes and all, and nestle his head against her stomach like he does sometimes when he’s feeling extra, _extra_ needy. But he won’t even let her fingertips linger against his skin.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. And he stands up, her hand trailing from his shoulder. Won’t look at her. And she _knows_ him. She gets up after him, incredulous, weirdly panicked. She knows what that note of finality in his voice means. It means he’s making a decision for her. Making a decision he swore he would let her make herself. He’s deciding that he’s no good for her, that he has to leave her, that he has to turn his back the way he did once before.

“Frank, _stop_ ,” she says sharply, and he does, and she can see the tension bunching in his back muscles as he steels against the words he knows are coming. “You told me, remember? You told me you weren’t ever going to be _better_ , and I know that, okay? I know that. I can be hurt without being broken by it. I can be mad without needing you to fucking flay yourself for it. You can’t just…you can’t just decide… _Frank_.” He turns, grimacing, drawn back by the catch in her voice, in the sound of tears in her shaking tone. “Frank, don’t leave.”

He sways forward, takes half a step forward, like she’s drawing him in with her eyes, with the glistening of her tears reflected by the moonlight out the window he’s determined to go back out.

“When I heard you were…I was so fucking scared.”

“I know.”

“Scared I couldn’t do it again. Scared I _could_. That it would be too easy. I don’t deserve another family. Shit, never thought I even deserved the one. And I can’t have that. Not now. Not again. Hard enough to look at you and think I could lose you. Hard enough, without…”

“Frank, I know.”

This time, when she goes to him, he doesn’t flinch away. He looks at her, his eyes that kind of lost, faraway look he gets sometimes when he’s too deep in his own head. Too deep in remembering. She curls her fist in his jacket, grabs his upper arm with her other hand. Touches him. Grounds him. She trails that hand up to his neck, and he finally looks at her, and she cups his cheek, tries to smile.

“But I’d do it.”

“Yeah. I know that too.”

“Yeah?”

“Frank, I know everything,” she says softly, and he finally grins. “Now stop being dramatic. Go take a shower. I’ll change the bed.”

That snaps him out of it fully, and he peers past her into her dark room, where the bloodstains on the white comforter look like pools of rust in the dark.

“Shit.”

He looks back at her, sees her fond smile, and this time he’s the one who takes the step forward, and he kisses her. A desperate, needing kiss that has her gasping against his mouth and curling that fist in his jacket even tighter, wrapping it around her hand, pulling him in.

Then he just holds her, and she holds him, needing it. She wonders if he can feel her heartbeat. She wonders if he can feel how much it scared her when he almost left. She hopes he doesn’t. Hopes he doesn’t feel just how much she cares about him, just how much he means to her, because she knows it’s too much and it’s too soon (and she loves him. She loves him too much. And he can’t know, he _can’t_ know, because he said he wasn’t going to love anyone again, and she believes him).

“Make it up to you,” he says.

“I know you will. You’re gonna shower, and then get back here and apologize to me properly, and then you’re never going to do anything that dickish ever again.”

He grins at her tone, one corner of his mouth lifting up in a smirk. It’s not entirely humorless. He’s getting there.

“Yes ma’am,” he says.


	4. Feelin' a Little Petty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guess who's gonna try and finish this story like an adult instead of leaving it hanging for almost a year??

A week and a half, and she’s basically written Jessica, and by extension Trish and Malcolm, off completely. Karen is a slow to anger kind of girl, but she also holds a _mean_ grudge, and while she had loved the feeling and the freedom of having more than three or four friends, she is also furious with Jessica (who has yet to apologize, or reach out, or even respond to Karen’s late night _fuck you_ text), so she has to pick one. And Karen chooses to stay angry.

Not with Frank, though. Their fight, emotionally draining as it had been, seemed to have drawn them closer than ever. He was apologetic, downright repentant about it, and after a few surprisingly touching monologues from him (about responsibility and about caring and about how, fucked up as he is, he knows now how he should be treating her), she vows not to bring it up again. And it’s sort of a catalyst for her. She asked him to stay. She let down the walls she had been building around herself to keep herself from seeming too needy, maybe, or desperate, or uncertain. She let him in, and he let her in in turn.

It didn’t mean she wasn’t still mad about what Jessica had done. Just…it was nice that something good came from something so shitty. Which was pretty much her entire relationship with Frank in a nutshell.

* * *

A week and a half, and she and Frank are entwined on his bed, both of them bare, both of them smiling, both of them so _ready_ for each other that Karen’s ready to burst just from his fingers trailing up her sides. It’s been an unusually good day for both of them, and even though she’s aching for him, it’s a funny kind of ache. One that allows mirth. Allows smiles. She laughs when she gets tangled in the sheets, and everything is so perfect. Unhurried. Beautiful. _Beautiful._ She feels it now, understands it now, how caring about someone this deeply, letting yourself fall and choosing to believe that they’ll catch you, how it leads to this feeling of perfect, uncomplicated bliss. She feels like she’s unlocked the secret to the universe just by falling back and believing that he’ll catch her and being proven _right_.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says, and he kisses the scar on her chest from Bullseye, and she can hear how wrecked he is, and she pulls him to her, lets him in, and she winds her arms around his neck and…

The door slams open.

Karen screams, clutches Frank, who wraps one arm tight around her back, pulls her close, spins halfway over his shoulder with his gun already at hand, the gun he keeps by his bedside table (which she has openly mocked him for in the past but which she is now grateful for even though they are about to die riddled with bullets while he is _literally inside her_ ).

But no one shoots them. Because it’s fucking Jessica and Trish standing there in the doorway, Jessica vaguely chagrined like she’s just missed a train, and Trish absolutely mortified, both hands clasped to her open mouth.

“Oops,” Jessica says blandly. “Okay, so maybe it _is_ Tuesdays they do it at her place.”

And Karen’s whole body is shaking, trembling, the terror and adrenaline shuddering through her as she clings to Frank’s shoulders and glares at the two women _still_ just standing there like they’ve been invited.

“I am _so_ sorry,” Trish whispers, agonized, and Frank lets the gun drop, stops bruising Karen’s ribs with his arm around her. He’s furious, overloaded with adrenaline the way she is, but he’s soft for a second when he looks at her, when he eases her back down on the bed and tucks her hair behind her ear.

“Okay?” he asks, and she nods. Without turning around, he asks, “the fuck are you two still doing here?”

“Staking out a dangerous criminal. We just need to use your window. We can turn around while you get dressed. Nice ass, though.”

“Karen,” Frank says, voice clipped, like a parent looking for help with an unruly child, and Karen just closes her eyes and wishes to everything holy that she hadn’t ever got the thought in her head that she needed more friends.

“Jessica, seriously, this is so bad,” Trish says, her voice still in a hissing whisper like she’s trying to avoid drawing Frank’s attention.

“Go wait in the bathroom,” Karen says.

“What?”

“Wait in the fucking bathroom while we get dressed, Jessica!” Karen all but shrieks, and Jessica grins at her, pointing. She’s only slightly wasted.

“There’s my girl,” she says, and she lets Trish shove her towards the bathroom, and she lets Trish close the door behind them.

“Fuck,” Karen breathes, pressing one hand to her eyes and the other into a fist in her hair. “Jesus. That scared the shit out of me.

“Yeah,” Frank growls, tense still, already dressing. She knows she’s not imagining the unsteady look to his limbs, the way he careens more than moves to his clothes beside the bed. “Sure you’re okay?”

She doesn’t answer, because she’s wired and terrified and genuinely thought for a second there that she and Frank were about to be gunned down or arrested.

“Are _you_ okay?” she asks. He runs a hand through his hair and pauses in the middle of dressing.

“Not sure. Too fucking angry,” he says pointedly.

“This isn’t my fault,” she snaps. But she got it wrong, because he looks confused by her defensive tone.

“Course it isn’t your fault. I’m the one who sent her here to find you the first time. She shouldn’t know this place. My fault. Her fault. Plus Max.”

He glares at the sleeping dog, who hasn’t moved from the couch, still wrapped in the blanket Karen bought him.

Karen laughs a little as she crawls out of bed and slips into a pair of sweatpants and one of Frank’s t-shirts. When she’s done, she goes to him. Hugs him. Surprises him, if the stiff initial reaction is any indication, but his hand goes to the small of her back and his head rests against her shoulder.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice how impressively fast you got that gun up,” she says, her tone a little teasing. But only a little. She doesn’t mention the other part aloud – that he shielded her so instinctively, that he would have taken every shot for her. She doesn’t say it, but when she takes his face in both hands and kisses him, she’s pretty sure he can taste it on her. She can certainly taste it on him.

“All right,” she calls once she’s pulled her hair back into a messy bun and has seated herself, cross legged, at the end of the bed. Frank wasn’t about to try and look intimidating in flannel pajama pants, and so he’s dressed imposingly in the jeans and combat boots he always wears, his dark gray t-shirt wrinkled, his black jacket fitted, showing the definition of his arms as he stands with them folded, his gun at his hip. She feels a flush as she looks at him, an annoyed irritation that they were interrupted. “You guys can come out.”

The door opens slowly, Trish’s face resolving beyond the crack, but Jessica pulls it past her, grumbling, “relax. He isn’t gonna kill us. He’s not that petty. Right?”

“Feelin’ a little petty,” Frank replies, but Jessica just grins.

As if all has been forgiven, she crosses to the window and moves aside the thick black curtains, peering out.

“As suspected, a perfect line of sight,” she says to Trish, as if that excuses any of this. Trish is still staring at Frank like he’s a celebrity she never thought she’d meet, or like he’s a performance artist on the street and she’s trying to figure out if he’s a statue or a real man painted to look like stone.

“By all means,” Karen says, drawing the words out dangerously. “Just feel free to use the apartment the way you were going to with zero explanation or apology!”

“We really are _so_ sorry,” Trish says quickly.

“I know that, which is why I’m not really talking to you,” Karen points out. Jessica heaves a sigh, glances at her phone.

“Ten minutes. In ten minutes, we’re gonna get a look at a car driven by a guy who has been tailing my client for the past two weeks. Threatening her. Terrorizing her. Malcolm’s posing as a dealer right now. This dude drives by this place once a week, midnight on the dot, asking questions about my client and other girls. We need someplace to watch.”

“Don’t act like you get to take the high road just because you broke in here for good reason,” Karen says, genuinely disgusted.

“You gonna kick me out or not?”

“Obviously not, but you’re still a fucking asshole.”

Frank grunts in agreement and grabs his hoodie from the wardrobe. Exchanges it for his jacket, then pulls the jacket on over it.

“Gonna go provide backup to your friend,” he says.

“You’ll scare the shit out of him.”

“He’s only gonna see me if I have to save his ass.”

He goes with a long look at Karen that says, _seriously, get these people the fuck outta here._

Karen waits until she can hear his boots on the stairs, biting her lips together as Jessica heads back over to the window. Trish sort of hovers there (after watching Frank leave, her head tracking after him, her jaw hanging open). Once the door slams behind him, she comes unstuck, gradually inches her way towards the bed.

“If it helps any,” she says. “Jess felt horrible about telling Frank about the, uh. Pregnancy scare. It just slipped.”

“She didn’t tell him about the pregnancy scare. She told him I _was_ pregnant.”

“What? Come on,” Trish whines, her eyes narrowed into daggers at Jessica’s back. Jessica, meanwhile, seems utterly unaffected in a way that only makes Karen angrier.

“Okay, to be _fair_ , I was trying to help,” Jessica says. Karen scoffs. She’s surprised at how bitter it sounds. But then again, when you open your heart to the possibility of someone, having it thrown back in your face is a betrayal. Especially when you aren’t used to doing it. Letting people in. That’s probably why Frank had been so wounded, so _annoyed_ , with her moral line in the sand about Colonel Schoonover. When you shut people out for so long, and you decide to let someone in and they immediately torch the place, it rankles.

“Trying to ‘help’ by telling a man whose family died that his girlfriend is pregnant? When she isn’t?” Trish asks shrilly.

“Well…okay. I was drunk. _But_ I was also thinking: Bambi’s freaking out because she thought she was pregnant! What if she actually _was_ pregnant! I told the guy to sack up and be a dad. Didn’t think he’d go all ghost on you.” Quietly, almost resentfully, she muttered, “and yeah, I _did_ feel a little bad. So. Whatever.”

“Right, and so you never responded to my _fuck you_ text. Seems like that might have been a good opportunity to apologize.”

“I don’t like confrontation.”

“You _live_ for confrontation! Shut up!” Trish yells.

“I know…I know it was stupid! And if anyone had pulled that on me, I’d be furious. I know. I don’t even know what I was thinking. I just saw the guy and I remembered how _scared_ you were, and it was like…Christ, what do you want me to say? I already apologized.”

“I wasn’t scared of Frank! God, why does everyone…I wasn’t scared of him. I was afraid of hurting him!”

Her voice goes soft and plaintive at the end, and Jessica sighs heavily, turning back to the window, but Trish sits in front of Karen, reaching for her hands.

“It’s okay,” she says comfortingly, the way Karen already knows she does, like, all the time.

“I’m never going to have to stop justifying myself for lov…for _caring_ about him,” she says, steeling herself. “But I’m tired already of having to do it. To people who I thought understood. I’m not Bambi, Jessica. I know how I seem. I know how I come off. Everyone always thinks…I’m not some delicate, helpless flower. I know what I’m doing! Telling him was a mistake.”

“Yeah,” Jessica sighs. “I knew that almost immediately, all right? Can we stop talking about this? Seriously, I’m gonna vomit.”

“I really am sorry about her,” Trish sighs quietly. Jessica is looking back out the window, peeking behind the curtain.

“Here we go!” she exclaims, snapping her fingers. Trish gives another apologetic look and scrambles off the bed, unhooking a fancy camera from around her neck and scurrying over follow where Jessica is pointing. Karen takes a moment to run her hands over her face and take some deep, sharp breaths. Then she swallows whatever strange, misplaced sadness is inside her, and she gets up to go to the window and watch.

The man pulls up just when he was expected to, and Jessica watches him as she relays the story to Karen without looking at her: Michaela Harris is a nanny to a wealthy family. Beautiful, with a past that included stripping and friendships with known drug dealers. It’s not a past she keeps secret, but the blackmailer didn’t seem to know that, and sent harassing emails to Michaela’s current employer.

“They already knew about everything, but she’s still worried it’ll get her fired. The jackass has sent emails to this family every day for the past three weeks, from multiple addresses. From what I’ve found, it seems to be a whole blackmailing ring.”

“All former strippers?”

“No. That’s the thing. I’ve talked to a few other people so far. One of the victims accidentally drowned a neighbor when they were a kid. One was a hit and run. One was a teacher who had an affair with another teacher. We’ve done some work to narrow it down, and so far we’ve got twenty people we’re pretty sure were threatened by this guy. We just can’t figure out how he’s doing it.”

“Jess thinks it might be a whole bunch of people. Like evil PIs,” Trish says. “One of my assistants got blackmailed. That’s why I’m here.”

“When I saw how close this place was to the corner, I figured we might as well take advantage. Seriously though, I really thought I had your schedule down.”

“Are you spying on me?” Karen asks.

“She spies on everyone,” Trish answers. She snaps a picture. “It means she likes you.”

Karen sighs. Resists the urge to growl under her breath the way Frank does when he’s annoyed.

“I want the story. I want it first.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Jessica smiles at her, a little pained, but relieved. And Karen doesn’t forgive her exactly, but she does find it easier to look at her. Does see a way past it. You just have to temper your expectations, she realizes. Just like with Matt. Just like with Frank. She’s not sure why she’s always surprised by disappointment. Does she really want to believe in people so badly? Is she still so naive, after everything she’s done? Everything she’s seen?

_God_ , she thinks, watching Malcolm approach the car with a nervousness that makes him a little obvious even from here. _Maybe Jessica’s right. Maybe I_ am _still too much like Bambi._


	5. So, the Punisher Just Called You Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised that this would be more comedic, and I maintain that it definitely still IS, but that doesn't mean I can't throw in some angst too!

“He calls himself Jigsaw,” Frank says, and he tosses another stack of papers into the box in her arms, moving on to the next corkboard. “And he’s _dangerous_.”

“Not to be flippant about this, but how does that make him different from any of the other dangerous people who could kill you at any minute?”

A quick glare from Frank, and he tosses another heap of papers at her.

“He’s a mistake. Must’ve been out of my fuckin skull when I let him survive. But it was early on. Wasn’t as certain what I was doin’, I guess. Shoved his face through this plate glass window and let him bleed. Figured if he lived, he could tell them. Tell them what I’d done, how many I’d killed. Shoulda killed him and let the bodies speak for themselves. That’s what I learned. Leave one alive, and one is all it takes. I’m paying for it now. Shoulda listened to my own damn advice.”

“Who is he, exactly?”

“Does it matter?”

“He have anything to do with your family?”

Frank’s sudden stillness reminds Karen that she hasn’t mentioned his family in a while. Has been too afraid to. Ever since Schoonover, that part of his mission was done. The primal, needing part. He’s The Punisher now, not Frank Castle, not father and husband out for revenge. She’s not sure if it’s easier for him to bear it this way or if it makes it more painful, because she hasn’t asked. She never _likes_ to bring up his family. Hates seeing that painful furrow of his brow when she does, like the hole in his skull aches with the sudden pain of the memory.

“Based on what he said when I last saw him? He was involved.”

He throws the last of the papers in the box and takes it from her, carrying it over to the door with the rest of his meager possessions. He’s moving with a tense urgency that is ill-fitting on him when they’re not in the middle of a firefight. It scares the shit out of her.

It was a coincidence that she had been walking into Frank’s apartment just as Jigsaw, whoever he is, called Frank. But it was a coincidence that Frank didn’t trust. He still hasn’t told her what Jigsaw said, but when Karen laughed at Max’s enthusiastic greeting, and Jigsaw said whatever he said about it, Frank’s face had gone noticeably pale.

“If you touch her, I swear to Christ,” was what he had said, and his voice was terror, was fury, was promises she knew he would keep, and it sent those familiar mixed signals of fear and _want_ rushing through her, because she was more and more getting used to the fact that she was built this way, that she could let those two feelings live together.

But Frank isn’t the kind to make threats and hope they work. Frank is the type to prevent and overprepare and freak out without visibly freaking out. And so he’s piling his things, planning. He moves with an efficiency that impresses her always, but it’s painful today, knowing the cause.

“Please,” she says. “Just tell me where you’re going.”

“I’m gonna find him. I got a guy can help me track him down. And I can’t be anywhere near you. Don’t think he has eyes on me yet, but that doesn’t mean he won’t. And don’t write about the Punisher for a while. Not ‘til he’s done. Can’t have him making any connections, got it?”

“Frank…” she says, and she can hear her helplessness, and so can he, and he looks at her with such _open_ pain.

“He knows there’s something he can take from me now.”

“He can _try_ ,” Karen insists. Staunch. Ready. He walks across the room to her, approaches with the same deadly urgency, but he slows when he gets close, and he reaches out for her, wrapping his fingers around her upper arms, looking at her with so much pain, so much fear, that she understands without him speaking. This is when they’re at their best. “You’re really worried about this. This is different.”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, Frank…”

“You know I’d love to tell you to kick as much ass as you want, but this guy…fucked up his face when I left him there, I guess. He ain’t the forgiving type. This is personal for him, the way it is for me. I know better’n anyone how that’s a bad combination, and I ain’t gonna let you be collateral damage.”

“Okay. I don’t like it, but okay, Frank. I trust your judgement. But…burner phone. Give me one. Keep one yourself. If you need anything…”

“I’m not going to.”

“Only reason either of us are standing here right now is one night you didn’t have anywhere else to go. And you weren’t half as scared by that as you are by this. Give me a phone.”

Frank finally grins at her. Kisses her on the forehead before bringing her head down to rest on his shoulder.

“Thank you,” he says, and she doesn’t have to ask what for.

* * *

The Trish thing is a coincidence. She calls to ask if Karen can appear on Trish Talk to give some more context about her most recent piece on The Punisher. Karen’s standing in her apartment, trying to tighten the final screw on the new iron window bars Frank dropped off before the Jigsaw shit.

“I’m really sorry,” she says, distracted. “I would literally any other time, but Frank actually warned me not to talk about the Punisher for a while.”

“What? Why not?”

“Some asshole coming after him. Actually, sorry, I probably shouldn’t talk about this over the phone…”

“Okay. I’ll be right there.”

“What? No, Trish, you don’t have to...”

“I want to. I’ll be right there.”

* * *

Karen doesn’t ask how or where Trish got her address. Doesn’t have to. She greets her at the door with a warm smile and hopes that this insanely wealthy woman doesn’t take too much umbrage with Karen’s awful place.

If Trish notices the shitty apartment, she doesn’t say. She also brought coffee. Which is good luck for both of them, because everyone always says Karen makes the worst coffee – too strong and bitter. Well, everyone except Frank. To Frank, that’s the only way to make it.

“What’s the deal?” Trish asks, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head.

“There’s some guy after Frank. Calls himself Jigsaw?”

Trish’s nose wrinkles adorably. “Why?”

“I’m not sure. Frank didn’t tell me much. Just that he let this guy live back when he was first starting out, and now the guy’s back for revenge.”

“That’s how you get rewarded for mercy in this city, I guess,” Trish mutters.

“Not sure I’d call it mercy. He says he messed up the guy’s face. Not sure what that means. Definitely sure I’m not gonna ask him to send pictures.”

“God, I don’t know how you do it. I mean…that sounded worse than I meant it. I only mean, hypothetically, I get it. And some people deserve to die. I agree with that. But it’s hard for me to imagine being able to draw a line the way you do.”

“Sorry…Draw a line?”

“Between Frank your boyfriend and The Punisher.”

“There is no line,” Karen says. She sounds short, and she hears it, and she wishes she could temper herself in these moments. “Sorry. I just…there’s no line. He’s the same man. If you think I’m someone who loves a man despite the darkness in him, you’re wrong. The darkness is one of the reasons I love him.”

“Okay,” Trish says, and even though she doesn’t seem totally convinced, at least she’s accepting, and that’s what matters. “Then I definitely don’t know how you do it. But if you think that makes me any less cool with you, you’re wrong. Believe me, after everything I’ve been through with Jess, I know a thing or two about loving the darkness inside a person. So the only question now is how to deal with this guy who wants to kill your man.”

“So far I’ve been trusting Frank to deal with it.”

Trish frowns, looks all motherly and concerned, says, “and who’s been dealing with you?”

* * *

And so that’s how Karen finds herself sleeping in Trish’s guest bedroom, surrounded by some of the best security in the world, feeling safe – _really_ safe – for the first time in almost a year. She and Trish spend their free time chasing down leads, trying to nail down Jigsaw’s movements, doing their best to avoid Jess finding out. There’s not a lot to go on, but at least it feels like _something_. At least Karen doesn’t feel quite so helpless. The only thing keeping it from being perfect is that she still has no idea where Frank is or what he’s dealing with. And she hates to think that he’s doing it all alone.

* * *

The burner phone rings after three weeks of silence, and she digs it out of her purse with trembling fingers.

“Hello?” she asks.

The voice that answers isn’t Frank’s.

“Two numbers on this phone. First guy, listed under Micro, said it’d be a real shame if anything happened to Frank Castle but he’s not going to disobey the man’s orders to stay out of it. And you, listed under K. I hope you’re feeling a lot more attached to him. If I find out he’s only got two friends and they can’t be bothered to lift a finger to help him out, giving the dickhead the rough treatment might lose some of its shine. Start to feel bad for the guy or whatever.”

Karen keeps her hand glued to her mouth to keep _any_ reaction from reaching Jigsaw’s ears. She forces herself to take quiet, calm breaths. Leans back in her chair and looks at Ellison, who stares back at her, still wondering why their one-on-one meeting was interrupted by a burner ringing in the bottom of his reporter’s purse.

“I’ll need confirmation that he’s alive,” she says when she manages to approach something resembling composure. Getting out her real phone, she texts Matt: _Frank held hostage man named Jigsaw. He’s calling now. Hear anything? See if u can pick up Frank’s voice_.

“Confirmation,” Jigsaw repeats dryly, seemingly amused.

“Yeah. Confirmation of life. That’s how these things work. I can’t just trust your good word that he’s still breathing. That gonna be a problem?” While she talks, she scribbles a note to Ellison: _someone has Punisher and is about to give me demands for his release._

“No, sure,” Jigsaw laughs. “Guess that’s fair. Otherwise how would you know I’m not just some crazy asshole who stole a phone off The Punisher?”

He’s sarcastic, obviously, but she can hear that he’s moving. She can hear him opening a door. Ellison points a questioning finger to the phone, and Karen nods. Her boss moves around the desk to lean in beside her, and Karen turns the volume up on her call. She doesn’t want to risk putting it on speakerphone, so she ducks her head close to Ellison’s, barely breathing. Her other phone vibrates on her desk: _Listening_ from Matt.

“Listen to me,” Frank says. His voice is hoarse. Bruised, and the sound of it brings to mind the way he looked after he got out of prison. The purples and blues giving his familiar face new dimensions. She wishes she could _see_ him . It would make this even harder, but she wants it anyway, wants to see from his expression exactly how screwed he thinks he is. “You’re not gonna do anything, all right?”

“Like hell.”

“I mean it. He wants you to come for me. Remember what happened last time you fell into a trap that stupid?”

Saving Foggy from Bullseye. She remembers. Remembers taking a club to the chest for her efforts, too.

“I remember,” she says.

“Good. Now, if I don’t…”

A sudden sharp grunt, something that from a less bottled up man might be a bitten-off cry of pain, and Karen feels her fingers tightening on the phone.

“Frank?” she asks.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that,” Frank says. His voice goes darker, more gravel-laced, more hoarse when he’s in pain. She knows this. She wishes she didn’t.

“Frank, listen to me. Yell and scream as much as you have to. Do you hear me? Be as _loud_ as you have to. There will be people out there listening for you.”

Frank’s silent for a moment, and then lets out a small sound that turns out to be a shaky laugh.

“I hear you,” he says. “Be strong, baby.” Louder, to Jigsaw, “wanna try again? I got a whole other kneecap.”

This time, he yells. It sends shockwaves of sympathy through Karen’s whole body, and she feels Ellison cringing beside her. Jigsaw takes the phone away from Frank as Frank’s still yelling, and she can hear Frank fading, getting farther away, as he yells threats and taunts that don’t tempt the madman this time. The slam of a door, and Jigsaw is alone again. Karen’s clutching the crumpled note to Ellison in her fist like it’s his windpipe.

“Central Park. Ten PM,” Jigsaw says. “Unless you want this asshole to join his family, you’ll bring me my file. The one he has on me. You got it?”

“Yeah. I got it,” Karen says, knowing full well that Frank didn’t give her any fucking file. “I’ll be there.”

“If you’re lucky, he’ll still be in one _piece_ ,” Jigsaw says. There’s enough inherent hamminess in his tone that she knows he’s trying out some new on-theme shit, and she wants to _crush_ him. And then the line goes dead.

There’s silence, then, but it doesn’t last long. It’s Ellison who breaks it.

“So, the Punisher just called you baby,” he says, because of course he does.


	6. Sweetheart, This is a Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my chapter lengths don't make any sense anymore, and I apologize profusely for it. One more chapter to go (I think? maybe 2?)

Matt didn’t hear Frank, couldn’t pin down a location even though he had been at the docks at the time – every murderous madman’s favorite hotspot – but he puts up surprisingly little resistance when Karen shows up later at his place and mentions the Central Park meet up.

“I’m assuming Frank told you not to get involved.”

“Of course he did.”

“And I’m assuming you’re not going to listen.”

“You know me so well, Matt. I’m touched.”

“You said this Jigsaw wants a _file_. Do you have any idea what it is?”

“No. Microchip probably has it, if I know Frank. I have a lot of his stuff in my apartment. Boxes of files he didn’t want to take with him. But nothing on Jigsaw. I checked. Three times.”

“Who the hell is _Microchip_?”

“Not sure. I’ve never met him. I just know he’s Frank’s _guy._ If Frank ever says “I have a guy who can do this”, he means Micro. But I don’t have any way to contact him.”

Matt is silent, his face turned in her direction for a long time. She knows what he wants to ask. But dear, sweet, Catholic Matt doesn’t quite know how to ask it. She keeps talking because she doesn’t want him to figure out which words can be said most delicately.

“I’ve asked Foggy to see if he can get us access to the cameras in and around the park. He thinks Hogarth can probably manage it for him.”

“We’re gonna lose a lot of resources when he finally tells them he’s quitting,” Matt says absently.

“I know. But for now, he has the full power of law firms who get paid in money. And speaking of money: Elektra.”

“She’ll help. She likes Frank. God knows they’re two peas in a pod sometimes.”

“I’ve also got another friend. She’s really strong. And discreet.”

“I think I know who you’re talking about.”

“She’ll help.”

Matt heaves a sigh and runs his hand over his face.

“I don’t like it.”

“Frank’s being tortured as we speak. I don’t like it either.”

“You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you?”

Karen blinks in surprise, glad that Matt can’t see her gobsmacked, incredulous expression.

She recovers enough to tersely ask, “I’m surprised you have to ask. Isn’t that something you can just _tell_?”

“I can tell you’re in love with him.”

Silence, then, and Karen tries to work through her indignation without getting too angry, because she knows he’s trying to help.

“You know, he said the same thing to me about you, not too long ago. That I was in love with you.”

“Did he?”

“Said I should hold on with two hands and never let go. A lot of BS about how it was good that you hurt me because he’d give anything to be hurt by his wife again. Not BS. That’s harsh. It just didn’t turn out to apply. I _was_ the one holding on. The whole time.”

“Karen…”

“My point is that you both are so convinced of what you perceive. And a lot of the time, you’re right. The things Frank says, it’s like he’s reading my mind. And you…it goes without saying. You can know things before I do. But that doesn’t mean either of you are batting a hundred percent, especially when it comes to each other.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“My answer is that things are a lot more complicated than you think sometimes, Matt.”

And he nods, but he’s skeptical, and the worst thing is that Karen thinks he’s right to be. _I know you’re in love with him_ , he’d said, and she had felt this panicked little jolt. Fear, not that Matt had guessed it, but that he was saying it aloud. A tiny little bolt of _don’t say it, he might hear you._

Ludicrous. Frank is being held somewhere far from here. He isn’t listening to anything. But that doesn’t stop this engrained fear, this certainty that he’ll walk away if he knows just how deep she’s gotten. _For your own good_ , he’d probably say. _You know I can’t…you know that isn’t me, anymore. I told you_.

He had. She respects it. She doesn’t _expect_ him to love her the way that she loves him. She could live with it if only Matt would keep his judgements to himself and keep Frank from thinking that he has to do the stupidly noble thing and walk away for both their sakes.

“But um, yeah,” she says quietly. “We’re sleeping together. If that bothers you…”

“I’m the last person in a position to judge.”

“That’s never stopped you before,” Karen points out, and Matt gives her a sad smile that admits it. “Sorry. I’m just…scared.”

Matt holds open his arms before she even realizes how badly she needs a hug.

* * *

Karen doesn’t _really_ cry about it until it’s time to tell Trish. And that’s mostly just because she’s done everything she possibly can. She talked to Matt, Foggy, and Jessica. She went back to the Bulletin to pick up the sort of realistic fake file that Ellison put together for her. She even stopped at the gun range Frank has taken her to a few times. Stayed until her hands stopped shaking enough for her to hit the target with every shot.

But Trish just has this _way_. And Karen needs to talk to someone who won’t try to fix anything or beg her to reconsider. And she’s just about reached the end of her role anyway, just about reached the limit of her ability to pretend like she isn’t terrified, hasn’t been shaking since she heard his pain on the other end of the line.

So she cries. Sobs. Sits on the couch and just lets it all out for poor Trish, who only asked how Karen’s day was, and who now looks like she’s been caught in a hurricane.

“Jesus,” Trish says when she’s done. “He has The Punisher? What kind of sicko are we talking, here? Castle doesn’t seem like the type of guy to let himself get caught.”

“He’s just a _man_ ,” Karen points out morosely. “He’s not like Jessica, or even Matt. He doesn’t have any powers. Except this uncanny ability to survive whatever torture gets thrown his way, I guess.”

“Well, he’s a badass. And _you_ are a badass. And if you’re gonna go to Central Park tonight to do this thing, I want in.”

“No, Trish…”

“I can take care of myself. Trust me. And if everyone else gets to be involved…”

“What if he recognizes you?”

“So he recognizes me. So what? He doesn’t have any idea you even know me, right?”

“What would Trish Walker be doing in Central Park at ten at night?”

“It’s a Saturday night the weekend before Halloween, Karen. There’ll be tons of people. Don’t worry. I’ll blend in.”

* * *

They all will, actually. That’s what Karen is worried about. How is she even going to find the guy? Everyone will be wearing costumes.

Foggy’s going dressed in a giant frog suit. He isn’t even really doing anything, just being around in case there ends up being anything he can do. Matt and Elektra are both going as Daredevil – like half of the city – and Jessica is going as The Punisher – like the other half. Karen plans on just going as herself, but Trish shows up at eight-thirty with a short black dress with a low neckline, one shoulder drooping no matter how many times Karen tries to fix it. There’s a skull spray-painted on the chest.

“Tell Jigsaw you’ll be wearing _this_ ,” she says.

* * *

So Karen finds herself standing in the middle of Central Park a few days before Halloween, dressed in the shortest dress she’s ever worn, thick black tights, and boots high enough to hide her gun strapped to one leg and a long knife strapped to the other. The long black coat, she leaves open, so anyone can see the skull.

At ten exactly, the burner phone rings.

She’s in the middle of a rather voracious crowd near the carousel – she had assumed Jigsaw and Frank would be somewhere near here, though she sees now how silly that was. There are people all over it. Not the ideal place for a hostage transfer. She takes a few steps out of the glow of the lights to answer the call. Matt, she knows, is somewhere nearby, ready to pass anything she says on to the others. Trish and Elektra are both prepared to either fight or provide a distraction – whichever is called for. Foggy has 911 ready to go. Jess is about as sober as she’s ever been, and she’s ready to punch anyone who needs punching. Karen needs to remind herself of this, needs to run through her backup, needs to remember that they’re here, because that’s the only way she’s not going to lose her mind.

“I’m here,” she says into the phone.

“I knew you would be. Now, I couldn’t get _anything_ out of Frank about you. Nothing at all. Not hair color or eye color or what you smell like.”

_Blonde. Blue. Coffee, probably._

“Not for lack of trying, I’m sure,” she says, trying to keep calm. She remembers hearing Frank roar when Bullseye nearly killed her. Now she knows why. The pressure in her chest feels like it might kill her if she doesn’t make Jigsaw scream.

“You have no idea. But! I promised you one piece. As long as you have that file I asked for.”

“I have it.”

“Good. Follow these instructions very carefully.”

She narrates them, repeats them back like questions, trusts Matt to pick them up.

“Turn left at the _gazebo_?” she asks, putting her hand to her opposite ear, just in case he’s watching. “You need to speak up. It’s loud here.”

That kind of thing.

She’s so convinced of her success. So convinced that she’s being careful. Which is maybe why she isn’t paying as much attention as she should, and why when someone grabs her from behind and clasps a cloth to her mouth, she doesn’t have the chance to fight back.

* * *

She wakes up because someone pulls her to her feet. She’s still wearing her dress, still wearing her boots, and she can still feel the gun and knife where she put them. So that’s a positive.

A negative is that her coat is gone, with her second knife and her phone. If he threw it out of whatever vehicle he brought her here in, Trish’s plan to GPS track her won’t be worth anything. Another negative is that her hands are tied together in front of her.

But even _that_ can be spun to a positive, because if Jigsaw had any idea who he was dealing with, he’d have tied her up a little better. He’s already underestimating her.  

She twists her head around to look at the man who has her by the elbow, and she finally gets a personal look she really didn’t want at what Frank meant by “fucked up his face”.

Jigsaw’s face is a patchwork of scars, like a quilt made by someone who isn’t very good at it. The ridges are raised, almost inflamed, like they’re infected or maybe just stitches done by someone who probably shouldn’t be practicing medicine anymore.

“Evening, gorgeous,” he says, grinning, seeming to know just how ghastly it makes him look. “Glad to see you’re awake. Wouldn’t want to keep your boyfriend waiting, would we?”

Karen feels blood trickling down the side of her face, and that head injury is probably why she has trouble walking as he shoves her forward, unsteady on her heeled boots. She keeps repeating it in her mind: he doesn’t know about the gun. He doesn’t know about the knife. He tied her hands in front of her rather than behind. These are all positives. He has no idea who he’s dealing with. Karen may not be Frank, but she has a few Frank-like qualities, and he has underestimated her. This wasn’t part of the plan, but it doesn’t mean they’re screwed.

And all her friends are out there now, trying to find her. Which, she figures, means she should start with the dramatic screaming.

“Let me go!” she yells, pushing back against him, shoving back with all her strength and sending them both sprawling. He grunts with surprise when she falls back into him, but recovers quickly and yanks her up so hard that she sees stars and thinks, for a second, that her arm might be dislocated. But no, no, it’s just wrenched. She would normally bite her lips and suffer in silence, but not today. Today, she lets it out.

_Come on, Matt. Be paying attention._

“The both of you! Don’t make me gag you too, sweetheart,” Jigsaw says, and he shoves her through a door and into a warehouse.

Of course it’s a fucking warehouse.

Karen stumbles a little on the lip of the concrete, raised just half an inch off the floor in the other room, and she hears chains rattling as Frank turns to face her.

And he looks, God, he looks awful. And terrified. Bleeding, bruised, his shirt torn with slash marks that speak of injuries underneath. His lip is split in three places. His neck has bruises ringed around it, imprints from chains around it. She’s so surprised by just how bad he looks that she trips again when Jigsaw shoves her, and falls to her knees right in front of him.

“Frank,” she says, a little desperately, wanting to tell him it’ll be okay. Wanting to tell him that she _has_ this. But his eyes are wild, unfocused, not looking at her like he usually does. Frank is always probing, understanding, his eyes always narrowed in thought. And if he would just _look_ at her, he would see that she isn’t frightened. Not in the way he is. He would understand that she has a _plan_. She’s armed and ready to fight back. He would get it. But now it’s like he’s beyond rationality, is panicked and lost. He’s looking at her like he’s seeing Maria all over again. She knows he’s been terrified to lose her, terrified to go through loss like that again. And now it’s staring him in the face, and he can’t handle it. Not after days of this kind of treatment.  

“When you told her to stay away on the phone, I thought that was a little silly. I mean, what woman would risk her life for Frank Castle? Shoulda known it was this groupie bitch from the Bulletin. God, her articles really do talk you up, don’t they? They make me fucking sick.”

Frank just stares and glares and growls until Jigsaw steps around Karen and removes the dirty rag tied around Frank’s mouth.

“If you touch her, I’ll rip off every one of your goddamn fingers.”

“I’d relax on the threats, big man,” Jigsaw says. “Wouldn’t want to give me any ideas for your lady, here.”

Frank pulls on the chains, strains, trying to rip his way free like he’s Jessica, like it’s just that easy. Karen feels oddly disassociated from the whole thing. She’s thinking ‘how do I get my hands on my gun,’ and ‘where the hell _are_ they?’, and she’s wishing Frank would calm down, would breathe, because they’re all going to be all right.

Jigsaw yanks her to her feet again, and the yelp of pain isn’t fake this time; he’s really doing a number on her shoulder. Frank pulls at the chains again, and she absently thinks of the way Max lunges at his leash when he wants to chase something.

“Now,” Jigsaw says. “I was gonna let her go as soon as I had the file. But then I saw the file was fake, and anyway, you were so goddamned upset when she agreed to meet with me, I figured there was something here. After all, a man with two contacts in his phone. One of them has to be important.”

He moves his hand up to grab Karen by the hair, and she yells something indignant and pained. He doesn’t admonish her this time; he seems to be enjoying what Karen’s discomfort does to the expression on Frank’s face.

“Just let her go,” Frank says. “I’ll tell you where to find it. Just let her go.”

“I used to be a good looking guy, blondie,” Jigsaw says companionably. “Ladies loved me. You probably woulda loved me. I was a real charmer, too, though turns out half of that charm was my face. Actually, most of everything was my face. You don’t realize how easy good looking guys have it until you aren’t so good looking anymore. All the pretty girls who laughed at my jokes before look away when they see me in the streets. Never mind fucking me. Would you fuck me, blondie?”

Frank snarls, and one of the chains creaks, like it’s close to breaking. Jigsaw laughs and holds up his hands, releasing Karen’s hair.

“Hey, relax. It’s just a question. Pretty sure it’s not a ‘yes’, too, which was the point I was going for, here. Thought about cutting up your face like mine. See if blondie here would still love you. Thought about cutting up blondie to see if you’d still love her. But, Christ, the risk with that kinda thing is that you’d both love each other even more, and I’m not accidentally gonna be involved in that after school special bullshit, right? Then I thought it over. It’s simple. You took from me the one thing I had to get me through the day. Now I’m gonna take _her_ from you. I don’t have to draw it out any. It’s not like she did anything to me. The whole thing, honestly, it’s a bit _much_ for me, but…killing her? I can do that easy.”

“You touch her, and you’re never getting that file,” Frank growls.

“No?”

Karen’s head is slammed to the side, her face aflame, her whole body sprawling. Frank roars along with the blood rushing through her ears, her face stinging from the shocking force of the slap.

She has never been so fucking angry.

Jigsaw has a chain in his hand, and for a second, she thinks he’s going to hit her with it. That might do it, might take her out of the game entirely, leave her unconscious and unable to get out of here. But instead he drapes it around her neck, pulls the edges together. Not tight enough to cut off her airflow, but the intention is pretty fucking clear. He looks over his shoulder at Frank, eyebrow raised hammily.

“Wanna try answering that question again, Frankie?”

“It’s in a storage unit,” Frank says.

“He’s just gonna kill us anyway, Frank,” Karen says. He looks at her finally, awareness and sadness and a bone-deep ache, and she feels her whole body itching to reach out and clean the blood off his face, stitch him back together. But he only allows himself to look at her for a moment, and then he’s back to staring at Jigsaw with that vacant, haunted expression.

“I’ll tell you where it is once you let her go. You can do whatever you want with me.”

“Frank, no,” Karen says. Real tears tickle behind her eyelids, which is weird. She’s still convinced this is going to be over soon, that she just needs to stall for long enough to Matt and the others to get here.

Jigsaw considers it, enjoying the hamminess of it, one finger tapping against the scar-tissue on his chin, a pantomime of deep thought. “It’s a tempting prospect. I guess the question is: do I want the file more? Or do I want to _destroy_ you more? The file has what I want. All the names and dates redacted from my medical files. Pretty important shit if I want to get my masterpiece back in order. Not to mention if I want to kill the dude who did _this_ to my face. But destroying you would be so fucking _good_.”

He squeezes Karen’s wrenched shoulder _hard_ , and she sees stars.

Then, outside, in the street, an explosion of gunfire.

“Better make up your mind quick,” she sneers, and like she wanted him to, he hits her again. She lets herself fall, lets herself ragdoll, and he doesn’t try to stop her. With a growl – some half formed words about ‘fucking incompetent mercenaries’ – he stalks away. Karen watches him through her curtain of hair as he exits the room. She waits for the door to close behind him.

Then she sits up, sighing with relief.

“You need to get out of here,” Frank says desperately. “There’s a skylight up there. If you can climb up that ladder…”

“Do I look like I’m in any shape to climb a ladder?” she jokes, bending down and rolling down her boot, pulling out the knife and cutting her hands free. _Thank you, Frank, for being a paranoid motherfucker who insisted on me knowing how to get out of something like this._ She smiles up at him triumphantly. “Sweetheart, this is a rescue.”

He’s still looking at her incredulously, and she goes over to him, cupping his face in her hands and kissing him. He wants to be angry at her for coming after him like this, she knows. He probably _will_ be angry later. But right now he sighs into the kiss, and she knows this is the first kindness he’s received in days, and she wants to make Jigsaw bleed.

And she will. But first…

She goes around to the back of the pillar to which Frank is chained. Her fingers seek out the lock in the dark, but it’s a huge padlock, and she has no idea where the key is. If Jessica was here, she’d figure this out in no time, but Jessica isn’t. Jessica, from the sound of it, is outside kicking ass with Matt and Elektra.

“No use. He’s got the key,” Frank says. “You gotta go.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“Karen, _please_.”

Later, she will realize that it’s the first time he’s ever said her name to her like that. But right now she just jams the knife against the lock, trying to get enough leverage to push it open. It’s useless and pointless and she knows it.

The door opens again, and Jigsaw is back.

“Looks like we gotta make a few adju…” he starts, then freezes when he sees that Karen is gone. She’s pressed against the pillar, on the other side of Frank, and he’s leaning heavily to his left to cover what little of her isn’t already hidden.

“Looks like some adjustments have already been made, asshole,” he sneers, almost a laugh. Karen reaches down into her boot as much as she can without bending over. Her fingers brush against the gun.

“There’s no way.”

“Plenty of ways,” Frank says. Sounds smug. Not at all panicked. Karen finally manages to free her gun.

“You are so fucking irritating, you know that?”

Loud, authoritative footsteps, and then this horrible sound, like someone stepping on rotten meat, a squashing sound. Karen doesn’t know what he’s done, but Frank lets out a hoarse cry when it happens, and she feels her gut clench low and feels her trigger finger twitch, and she rounds the corner, takes in Jigsaw jamming something sharp straight through the palm of Frank’s hand, and she doesn’t hesitate. She unloads.

It’s Wesley again, only this time she knows what she’s doing. It isn’t all reaction the way it was before. She’s saving the man she loves. Because, shit. Everyone is _right_ about that, aren’t they? It doesn’t matter if she won’t say it, if Frank won’t be able to love again, if she’ll never be anything more than a second chance at happiness he’s too fucking self-loathing to fully embrace. She loves him, and Jigsaw hurt him, and Jigsaw deserves to die.

She’s glad Matt isn’t here to hear how steady her heartbeat is. She doesn’t feel guilty at all.

“Are you okay?” she asks, trembling, putting the gun back in her boot, tearing her eyes away from the dead man on the floor. Frank is looking at her like he’d worship at her altar if someone would unchain him and let him drop to his knees. She wraps her arms around his neck, pulls him into an awkward hug, and he rests his bloody, battered face on her pale shoulder. She feels genuinely fucking blessed.

“Are _you_ okay?” he asks, mumbles against her skin. 

“I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“Hit you pretty hard.”

“Yeah,” Karen agrees, pulling back to look at him. “But I hit him harder.”

He laughs, then. The laugh he laughs when they’re just falling asleep and she makes a joke, or when she kisses along his jawline to try and wake him up in the morning. Tired. Exhausted. Affectionate.

And all she had to do was kill a man.

“How bad is it?” she asks.

“I’ll let you know when I can feel my fucking arms again” Frank says, rattling the chains that are keeping his arms pinned up.

“Let me go find Jess.”

“That her outside?”

“Her, Matt, and Elektra,” Karen confirms.

“Pulled out all the stops, huh?” he asks. She smiles softly at him.

“Wasn’t gonna leave you here,” she says. “You really are an asshole if you think I wouldn’t try _everything_.”

“Guess so. You got lucky though.”

“So did you.”

He huffs another laugh, but this one is mostly annoyed and impatient, so she goes back toward the door Jigsaw led her through earlier. She understands what he’s saying, but this isn’t a conversation she wants to have now. This is a conversation she doesn’t want to have at all! But right now especially, she just wants to save him, and hug him, and bring him back home. She’ll deal with his lectures about taking care of herself instead of taking care of him later.

Jessica enters through the side door, and Karen can now see her black coat is still tossed in the back of the van out by the curb, which Jigsaw must have used to transport her here. Trish is just a few steps behind, taser ready. When she sees Karen, she gives this sort of adorable gasp/scream.

“Holy shit, what happened to your _face_?” Jessica hisses. “Are you okay?!”

They go to her, hands hovering around her like they’re afraid to touch anything that might hurt. It’s…sort of sweet. Sort of nice to be coddled like this, even though it’s _really_ not the time.

“I’m fine,” she insists, though she tolerates Trish’s fingers feeling for a fracture or something along her cheekbone. Frank’s in pretty bad shape. He’s chained up in here. Don’t know about a key, so…I need your help.”

“Easy,” Jessica says. “Anyone in the warehouse we should know about?”

Karen shakes her head.

“Okay, well Daredevil and Elektra are out there mopping up the rest of the assholes. Pretty well guarded for a random, vindictive jackass.”

“He was expecting trouble,” Karen says. Doesn’t say ‘but he wasn’t expecting me’, though she wants to. She knows Jessica well enough at this point that she knows it’ll just piss her off, make her roll her eyes.

“Expecting trouble from the inside, maybe,” Trish says. “You should have seen it. Daredevil and Elektra took out like _four_ guys before they even noticed there was something wrong. They weren’t looking for outside attackers. They were counting on Frank getting loose.”

“Well, who would ever be fucked up enough to come save The Punisher, right?” Karen asks with a bit of a sobbing laugh, some of the shock finally starting to wear off.

Jess apparently decides that she needs Frank free to deal with an emotionally compromised Karen, because she just _goes_ , takes off jogging back into the warehouse section.

“Holy shit,” she announces loudly when she gets there. “You look even worse than she does.”

“Nice,” comes the deadpan response.

* * *

Karen and Trish take up positions on either side of Frank, then wait as Jessica frees him with a few no-nonsense flicks of the wrist. He sags into their arms with a grunt of pain, listing heavily towards Karen.

“Took a baseball bat to my knee,” he mumbles. Jessica winces.

“Ugh, sit him down,” she says, and Karen and Trish help him to sit, his broken knee stretched out in front of him.

“God, he’s really bleeding,” Trish says. Her hands are drenched in blood, and she bends over him, trying to find the source.

“He needs a doctor,” Jessica says. “I know a nurse who can be discreet.”

Karen sighs with relief and says, “yeah. Pretty sure we know the same one. We gotta get him home first. The gunfire’s gonna draw cops.”

“Where’s home?” Trish asks. “You said he moved out of the old place.”

“My apartment,” Karen says. “Not _your_ apartment. I mean mine. I haven’t technically moved out of the old one yet?”

“You were supposed to take care of that,” Trish replies, ever the disappointed mother hen of the group.

“Yeah, well, unless you want to explain _this_ to your doorman? Keeping my own place was probably a good call,” Karen points out.

“Just sit here. I’ll grab Foggy. He can drive the van.”

Trish pulls Jess with her. Neither of them have mentioned Jigsaw, the very dead elephant in the room, but she knows they noticed. Knows they put it together. Wonders, vaguely, if that’s going to come back and haunt her.

But for now, it doesn’t matter. Karen pulls Frank in, grips his shoulder and brings his head down to rest against hers.

“The fuck you doing?” he asks, a grumbly, sleepy question that makes her smile.

“Giving you a place to rest your head,” she says. “Think you could use a nap.” Her own voice sounds distant and tired too. It still hasn’t really registered. It just all happened so _fast._ Frank brings one arm to her front, and she thinks he’s uncharacteristically copping a feel for one confused second, but he clutches some of the fabric spray-painted with his skull, and she laughs. She lets her own fingers play over the scar from the bullet wound in his temple.

“Nice dress,” he murmurs.

“Yeah? Thought you might like that.”

“Stupid, coming for me. Told you I’d only ever cause you pain.”

She laughs harshly. Knows he’s too tired for this fight. Knows she’s too tired for it too.

“If that was all you did, we wouldn’t be here,” she promises. “And besides. You never told me that. It was just strongly implied.”

He allows a chuckle, exhausted and pliable, grimacing when he tries to get more comfortable. She kisses him on the top of the head and grips his shoulder tighter. Her own shoulder is crying out, her head swimming from where Jigsaw hit her and she fell against the concrete. But it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.

* * *

Everyone plays a part. Jessica carries Frank to the van. Matt keeps an ear out for the cops, warns everyone when they’re getting close. Foggy, squashed into the front seat in his oversized frog costume, takes the wheel, while Elektra navigates him through the unfamiliar warehouse district. Karen and Trish hold Frank steady in the back of the van. Jessica and Matt go their own way, taking off together to find Claire.

It’s all a blur to Karen, but she never feels like there’s any danger. Surrounded by her friends, she feels like nothing can go wrong. It’s that weird, dissociative feeling again.

It only lasts until Frank passes out. And there’s a heartbeat of a second when she’s convinced he’s dead – he goes limp, his eyes slide closed, his head bouncing and turning with the bumpy road, and she feels all the fog on her brain whisking away.

“Oh my god,” she whispers, feeling along his bloody, bruised neck for a pulse. Her fingers are shaking so badly that Trish has to take over, and then she grabs Karen’s fingers and presses them hard into Frank’s skin.

“See?” she says. “He’s okay.”

His pulse feels weak, though. He’s not okay.

Karen may or may not cry the rest of the way back to her apartment.


	7. So is it Worth it, Then?

In Karen’s neighborhood, much like all of their neighborhoods, the neighbors tend not to ask questions. That one time Elektra attacked Karen at her last place, no one even called the cops.

But even the least nosy of neighbors will poke their heads out if you accidentally slam a man’s head into their door as you’re trying to four-person-carry him down the hallway. And that’s exactly what happens when Foggy pivots a little too much around the corner and ends up sending Franks skull smashing into Mr. Thompson’s door.

“Foggy!” all three women hiss in unison, and Foggy – again, the man is _still dressed in an oversized frog suit_ – squeaks something indignant in response. Mr. Thompson opens the door after they’ve made it another maybe ten feet, and he takes them in with a staid kind of blankness, like this is something he’s seen before.

“Ms. Page,” he says, and he walks towards them. When he sees who they’re carrying – Karen’s attempts at blocking being a little half-hearted – his eyebrows shoot up. “Is that…?”

“Mr. Thompson, please…” Karen’s saying, and Elektra is already twirling a sai, waiting for the go-ahead, and Karen’s trying to figure out what to say. But Mr. Thompson just holds out his hand.

“Let me get the door for you,” he says, and Karen drops her keys into his palm. Still not totally sure what he’s doing. Still not totally sure she’s going to be able to talk Elektra out of killing him. But he opens her apartment door and steps aside to let them in, the dark skin of his face etched with concerned lines.

“Thank you,” she says, but it’s a question too, and it’s only when he smiles at her that she feels relief.

“You know, he saved my daughter’s life? It was in one of your articles. Her last name is Williams, so you might not have realized…”

“Antonia,” Karen says, and Mr. Thompson smiles, and Elektra lowers the sai, tucks it back into her costume.

“That was a freebie,” she mutters.

“Don’t always agree with his methods. But you can’t argue with his results. I won’t mention this to anyone.”

“Thank you, Mr. Thompson,” Karen says, and she’s sure her relief is audible. Palpable. He nods, disappears back to his apartment. Karen feels like crying again. Only doesn’t because she’s pretty sure she’s cried out.

“Well done,” Elektra says, clapping her on the shoulder. “You really are like Matthew sometimes, aren’t you?”

Karen lets out a strangled, surprised laugh at that.

“What, because I don’t want to kill everyone?” she asks.

“Exactly,” Elektra coos fondly.

“Can we please get him on the bed?” Foggy says, losing his grip on Frank’s legs.

“Why did we let Jessica go with Matt?” Trish groans. But they manage, sliding him as carefully as they can onto her bed. Another comforter lost to bloodstains. The curse of banging The Punisher.

“First aid?” Trish asks. Karen points in the direction of the bathroom. Foggy loudly proclaims that he’s ‘on it’.

“I’ll get some towels,” Elektra says, which isn’t exactly necessary. But okay. Trish carefully unlaces Frank’s boots, pries them from his feet, and then stands in the middle of the room looking helpless. Karen, too, has no idea what to do, and she just sits on the edge of the bed beside him and tries to catalogue all his injuries.

“It’s bad, right?” she asks.

“Yeah, sweetie,” Trish replies. She figures out what to do, then. Her job is comforting Karen. She walks over and wraps her arms around her, uses their rare height disparity to pull Karen in, Karen’s head resting right on Trish’s boobs. “It’s okay, though. I’m here. I’m here.”

* * *

Claire isn’t reluctant like she was last time. She comes ready, loaded down with supplies, her mouth set in grim determination.

_I’m just gonna embrace it at this point_ , her whole demeanor seems to say. _Thinking up ideas for a costume right now. Night Nurse. Patching up vigilantes in random apartments._

“Everyone except Karen needs to get out,” she says when everyone crowds around her. “Preferably out of this apartment. I’ll accept sitting _quietly_ on the couch from you and you.”

She points to Foggy and Elektra, who glance at each other, confused.

“Why us?” Foggy asks.

“Because _you_ have learned to shut up and do what I ask you to, and _you_ have magic blood.”

“Oh, right,” Elektra laughs as she takes a seat. “To be honest, I’d forgotten all about that.”

“We’ll go feed the dog at Trish’s place,” Jessica says. She’s been cagey since she got back in. Like something happened at Claire’s place that she didn’t like. She tugs Trish away from Karen with an apologetic look and storms out.

“I’ll keep watch,” Matt says. He puts his hand on Karen’s shoulder before he goes, and she gives him a thin smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

* * *

She’s so tired. So scared. At the warehouse, with Jigsaw, she had been so calm. She knew she should be scared, but she wasn’t. But now, here, she’s helpless. She has done everything she could, and it might not be enough.

Claire asks for scissors. Asks for thread. Asks for things that barely make sense, and Karen knows she’s asking to keep Karen busy. Claire brought a good amount of her own supplies, but since she and Frank have started this _thing_ they’re doing, Karen has started stocking a small arsenal of medical supplies, and Claire’s absent praise on the size of her first aid kit make her feel at least like she’s doing _something_ right. Claire slices through Frank’s t-shirt and cuts away his jeans, and she yells out to the living room that Foggy should boil some water.

Mr. Thompson stops by with some painkillers left over from his recent knee surgery, and Karen leaves the bedroom briefly to thank him.

“He helped me more than he could ever understand,” he says. “Well, maybe he’s the only person who _could_ understand it, now that I think of it. It’s time for me to help him back.”

Another neighbor, Mrs. Johansson, stops by with an unopened bottle of whiskey. Karen wants to be indignant that Mr. Thompson has turned out to be a snitch, but then seventy-five-year-old Mrs. Johansson calls seventy-eight-year-old Mr. Thompson her _boyfriend_ and, well. That’s too sweet to be angry at. And Mrs. Johansson is utterly charming, anyway, and has a mouth like a sailor.

“I can’t tell you how many times I wished I could walk down that street at night after I was attacked, gun in hand, daring people to try to hurt _anyone_ around me,” she says. “That Irish prick, that fucking gang, always around. Never saw the inside of a cell on my account, the bastard. I can’t hate a man who goes out of his way to make sure the worst of them get put away for good.”

“I like you,” Elektra says, taking the pie. “For so, so many reasons. Thank you.”

Karen accepts the offered hug from the elderly woman (having to stoop like some kind of giant to embrace her four-foot-eleven body) and feels the crushing pressure in her chest starting to subside.

* * *

Claire decides that things aren’t desperate enough to try Elektra’s magic blood, and so Elektra takes off, telling Karen ominously that she’s going to need a new apartment.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Foggy protests. “And Karen can’t afford anything flashy, anyway.”

“Maybe not. But I can,” Elektra replies, and then she leaves with a hug for Karen and a deaf ear to Karen’s protests that she won’t take charity.

At one point, Claire calls Foggy in and tells he and Karen to hold Frank down as she sets his broken bones. Frank is briefly conscious, wild-eyed, but Karen talks him through it until he passes out again, and then she takes a minute to sob in the bathroom with the water running so no one can hear her.

* * *

When Claire is finished, she looks _finished_. Exhausted. Worn down. She asks if she can take a shower. Foggy leaves after a long hug and a tearful, somewhat reluctant acknowledgement that he’s glad Frank is okay, and that Karen kicked ass tonight.

When Claire is out of the shower, Karen tells her to take the couch instead of heading back to her place, and Claire somewhat surprisingly agrees. Karen makes them both some tea, and then she gets out a spare sheet and a blanket for her. When they’ve spread everything out, and Claire has changed into the far too long pajama pants that Karen lends her, Claire sinks into the couch with an exhausted gratefulness that makes Karen feel guilty all over again.

“Maybe I should go to nursing school,” she says. “Take some of the load off you.”

“Trust me. Don’t,” Claire replies with a laugh. She sips some of her tea and lets out a luxurious sigh when she does. “You seem to be doing okay with that first aid kit.”

“I’ve gotten _really_ good at stitching.”

“Practice makes perfect, I guess,” Claire says, with a look that gives Karen pause because she’s probing, almost. Asking a question.

“Yeah,” Karen says. “It happens a lot.”

“How do you do it? I don’t just mean the aftermath. I can do that part, the fixing. But sometimes, they don’t need to be fixed. They just need to go out there and do what they need to do, and it’s hard, right?”

“Of course it’s hard. Look at me. I’m a wreck.” a watery laugh, and Karen holds out her hand so Claire can see it shaking. “He’s been gone for three weeks. I hate how it sounds, when I talk about it like that’s so much time. When I hear how needy it sounds…”

“It doesn’t sound needy.”

“It feels it. But when you love someone, you have to decide if it’s worth it.”

“Love, huh?” Claire asks doubtfully. Karen laughs again, tear filled again.

“I had this friend in high school. Claudia. Um, she was sort of the cynical type. She was Chinese, the only Chinese girl in our school. There was one Vietnamese kid, and one girl from Jamaica, and that was as far as it went, diversity wise.”

“Connecticut?”

“Very, very small town Vermont.”

“Close enough.”

“Well, Claudia was very cynical. Very like…it was sort of cool, then. To be the girl who talked in a deadpan voice and gave everyone the stink-eye, right? And everyone already treated her like she was different, and so she kind of…reclaimed it, she said. Took pride in it, in being her own person.”

“Sounds about right,” Claire laughs.

“Well, in hindsight, I don’t even know how we were friends. I mean, I was this tall, awkward, super naive person, and I fell in love with everybody who looked at me. After I left, I started hearing her voice, all the time, because she used to say, “you don’t know what love even means, do you? You’re just basing everything off what you think you’re supposed to feel for every boy who smiles at you.”

“God, she sounds just like me at that age.”

“She was right. She’s still right. I _don’t_ get it. I always think…I mean, God, right _now_ , I’m thinking that I love him. I’m thinking that I _know_ that I love him, but…I don’t know. It’s just…maybe it’s just like the other times. Maybe I just need…something. Everyone looks at me sometimes like…like they can’t quite believe what I’m thinking. Most of the time I think they just don’t get it. Maybe it’s _me_ who doesn’t get it.”

“No one does, though. That’s the thing. There’s no rule book. None that work, anyway. Especially not with people like this.”

“Even if I do lo…” she sighs, unable to actually say the word again. “Even if I did. We’ve made sure not to cross that line.”

“ _We_ , huh?”

“He’s lost so much. He can’t…and I don’t want to push him. I don’t _blame_ him.”

“So is it worth it, then? Even despite all that?”

“Yeah.”

“That was a quick answer.”

“Not something I had to think too hard about. If I didn’t think it was worth it, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have fought so hard to get here in the first place.”

“And what happens the day he doesn’t make it back from something?”

“Then I become Lady Punisher, obviously. Avenge his death. Kill as many bad guys as I have to…the cycle continues.”

Claire snorts into her tea, shakes her head.

“Funny.”

“I thought so.”

“Well, hey. The skull dress is a good look. You could pull it off.”

“Yeah,” Karen laughs, trying to tug the second shoulder of the dress up for the thousandth unconscious time tonight. It slides back down, and she leaves it, exhausted. Numb.

“Seriously, though. You _know_. I can tell from the way you made that joke, even. You know it’s gonna end horribly.”

“Not to be too morbid, but doesn’t everything end kind of horribly?”

“Not everything.”

“I almost died a few months ago. I had… _feelings_ for him then, I guess, but like you said, I knew it was bound to end with him in a bodybag, so I never…but I almost died anyway. And when he showed up in my hospital room and told me how he felt, when he let me make the call, I realized that whoever you love…eventually, one of you is gonna die and leave the other empty.”

“Jesus, you weren’t kidding about being grim.”

“Well, it’s true! And I figured if I might be killed at any point, and if _he_ might be killed at any point, then I’d rather have this time with him. Even if it hurts more when it’s over.”

“All right. Yeah. I guess I can see your point there.”

Claire smiles at her, as soft and as vulnerable as Karen has ever seen her.

“Does that answer your question?” Karen asks, and Claire nods. Karen knows Claire isn’t just asking about Frank and Karen. Knows it’s a lot more personal than that.

“Yeah. That helped. Thanks, Karen.”

“Anytime. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight. Try to get some sleep, okay?”

Karen nods absently, though she thinks they both know it’s not going to be that easy. She heads back into her bedroom and closes the door. Stares down at her bed. At Frank. He looks pale. Younger like this. She sits down beside him on the very edge of the bed and traces the scar on his head with her fingers the way she likes to do.

She can’t believe she said to Claire that she loves him. She can’t believe how true it is. She can’t believe what an _asshole_ he is, being the kind of guy she can’t help but fall in love with even though she knows he can’t love her back.

She grabs a blanket from the closet and curls up on top of the comforter, facing him, watching him breathe. She’s usually the one who falls asleep first. Falls asleep with his fingers carding absently through her hair, with his hands touching her face with something like disbelief. Sometimes he dreams, and he jerks around on the bed hard enough to wake her, and she’ll try to soothe him until he’s settled or awake. But she’s never seen him asleep like this.

She curls in close. Rests herself against him, gently pulls his head down to her chest. Cradles him as carefully as possible. She feels this fierce protectiveness for him. She will keep him safe.

* * *

In her dream, Frank is already dead when Jigsaw drags her into the warehouse.

* * *

She wakes up with a start, and Frank’s shushing her already, sitting up above her, grimacing as he tries to maneuver himself into a better position.

“You’re okay,” he says, and she nearly bowls him off the bed as she goes to her knees and flings her arms around his neck.

“ _You’re_ okay,” she insists into the gauze on his left shoulder. She pulls back and kisses him, feels his split lip smile, tastes his blood.

“Hell of a rescue, ma’am,” he says, and she smiles and kisses him harder, so he can’t say anything else.

“You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Wasn’t being sarcastic.”

“Oh yeah? You sounded it.”

“I sound like I haven’t had a glass of water in two days.”

Karen kisses him once more and pulls back, slides off the bed, Frank quietly grumbling that he didn’t mean he needed water right that second, not wanting her to leave. She aches in small places now, her neck and her back and her bruised face, but she can’t complain. Goes into the kitchen and grabs a glass. Fills it with ice and water, and then resumes her place on the bed, handing it to him.

“Hope you’re not too bad a patient,” she says thoughtfully, looking down at his knee, stretched out in front of him. “Because you’re gonna be off that knee for a while.”

“I heal fast, remember?”

“Not _that_ fast.”

“Everyone okay? I remember you said they were all out there.”

“Everyone’s okay. Foggy’s even glad you’re not dead.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m like seventy three percent sure he wasn’t just being nice.”

Frank chuckles and puts the now-empty glass back on the bedside table.

“Maybe I should get you a pitcher. Or a bowl.”

“Speaking of. Where’s Max?”

“Trish’s place. I was staying there while you were gone. You should see it. I’ve almost never felt safer in my entire life.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It was like the next best thing.”

“Next best thing to what?”

“The ultimate security precaution,” Karen says, leaning in closer so she can drag her fingernails gently along Frank’s scalp the way he loves. He looks at her quizzically. “Banging the Punisher, obviously. Nothing can get through you.”

She wanted a laugh, but she gets a thoughtful scowl instead. A distant frown.

“Jigsaw did.”

“Only briefly.”

“No, he did. And he would’ve finished me off. Except for you.” He laughs, a hollow and empty sound. “Christ, what did I ever do to deserve you?”

“Well, you saved my life. A few times. Probably more than I know. And you’re very generous. You know, sexually.”

“Christ, Karen. I’m tryna be serious here.”

“I know. But you’re just going to get sad and distant, and you’re going to start talking about how you _corrupted_ me, or something, and I don’t want that tonight. I almost lost you. I just want to be here in this dark room. Just Karen and Frank. Nothing but two slightly beat up people who give a shit about each other. Is that okay?”

“Karen and Frank, huh? World’s most boring roleplay.”

She hides her delighted laugh and kisses him once more before going to grab a giant bottle of water from the fridge that she was going to bring to work with her tomorrow. When she comes back, Frank is leaning back against the pillow, and she crawls in beside him. Watches him drink for a while.

“You know that’s the second time you called me Karen in two days. Never done that before.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“You been keeping count?”

“It was an easy count, seeing as it was holding steady at zero. You also called me ‘baby’, which Ellison heard, and I’m sure he’ll start giving me major shit about it once he figures it’s appropriate to tease me about you almost dying.”

“That’s what you get for putting me on speaker, I guess.”

“Give me _some_ credit. No speaker. He was just in the room. Listening.”

“Uh huh.”

“Well I had to give him some explanation for why I looked like my world was ending in the middle of a meeting, didn’t I?”

He looks at her for a long time when she says that. That searching look. She suddenly wishes he had seen her reaction. That he _knew_ , viscerally, the way Ellison now does, what the thought of him in pain had done to her.

Though maybe he does. He kisses her, languid and slow and somehow _thankful_. Or maybe she’s just projecting again. Frank pulls back and looks at her. Smiles.

“Figured I’d try it out. Baby.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Felt weird.”

“Well, you _were_ being tortured at the time.”

“Maybe. Felt like tryin’ too hard.”

“You’re not going back to ma’am, are you?”

“Don’t know, ma’am. I just might.”

She groans theatrically, but quietly, mindful of Claire in the other room.

“Well if you’re gonna keep doing it, you might as well follow my orders. And right now, you need sleep.”

“Been sleeping for a while. Sun’s almost up.”

“How long were you in that warehouse?” His expression hardens, and she smiles softly. “You need more than a couple of hours.”

She pushes him gently back down, then gets out of bed to grab a bigger blanket from the hall closet.

She pulls it over both of them as she climbs back into bed, and Frank’s already drifting off again, sinking into the pillows. She makes him drink some more water, swallow some of Mr. Thompson’s painkillers. Then she pulls his head down into her lap. She doesn’t think she could sleep anyway; she’s too wired now.

He seems ready to fight her on this, but in the end he just sighs and makes himself comfortable. One of his arms curls over her legs and under her thigh. She drags her fingernails through his hair, her other palm flat against his back. There’s comfort in feeling his chest rise and fall and rise again. Comfort in his warm breath against her leg. She rests her head back against the wall and closes her eyes. Breathes. Jigsaw’s death is playing behind her eyelids, but it doesn’t feel like it did with Wesley. Not yet. Hopefully not ever.

What she did, she did it to protect him. For now, the only thing she feels is pride. Relief.

They’re okay.


	8. I'm Not Going Anywhere

“So, one question that’s been on my mind a lot when I read your pieces, Karen. Without any frills, any doubletalk…how do you _feel_ about The Punisher?”

Trish’s voice is all business, but her smile is soft and knowing and just a _little_ teasing. Karen folds her arms on the table in front of her and pretends to consider.

“Well, I’m sure most of us would agree that’s a complicated question.”

Says the woman wearing her Punisher dress to a radio interview about the freaking Punisher.

“I don’t know,” Trish says playfully. “Seems to me a lot of people have a lot of very uncomplicated feelings about him.”

“You mean they _say_ they have uncomplicated feelings. Most of the people who say one way or the other have to agree that it’s not always simple. People who say he should be stopped…he’s shown up in the middle of gang wars and saved innocent people caught in the crossfire. He’s stopped serial rapists, has stopped people from carrying out heinous acts. The Punisher, whether you agree with his methods or not, has done a lot of good for this city. _But_ , it can’t be discounted: his methods are brutal. They can be _extremely_ brutal. And he’s ending lives. You can’t just gloss that over. He’s a man taking the law into his own hands. It’s impossible to avoid the unfortunate implications of that.”

“Some people can.”

“Some people can, sure. Some people are very passionately for or against, and no amount of conversation will change their minds. Some people are okay with him sometimes, but draw lines elsewhere. Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Sounds like a non-answer to me.”

“Okay,” Karen laughs. “I’m fine with that. It’s an almost impossible question to answer.”

“If you had to choose, gut reaction. How would you say you feel about the Punisher? _Personally_.”

Karen can practically feel Ellison listening, glowering, willing her not to commit to anything. And she can see Trish’s daring smile. And she knows Frank is listening, because three weeks into recovery and he can still barely move around the new apartment, and he was _livid_ when she said she was going to talk about him on air. On the record. Giving _opinions_.

(“Don’t try anything cute,” he had said.)

“Seriously, repress the urge to brag about this,” Claire had agreed with a pointed glance at Frank’s torso, pulling off her surgical gloves to announce that Frank was a freak of nature and healing perfectly.)

“Personally? Personally, I feel a lot safer in a world with The Punisher in it,” Karen says. “And I would love to _personally_ thank him for the times he’s helped me.”

* * *

Karen loves her new apartment. Practically killed Elektra when her reincarnated friend bought the building so she could lower the rent and get Karen a place, but Elektra had insisted. She and Trish had teamed up to bully her about it, Frank had made a few pointed comments about the upgraded security, and Foggy sent her several mothering emails containing crime stats for her new neighborhood versus her old one. Eventually, Karen caved.

She was so reluctant to accept the charity from Elektra. So reluctant to accept any sort of help from any of her friends. But now that a few weeks have gone by, she could admit that they were right. Her new place is amazing. Two bedrooms. _Two_! And a living room and kitchen with a pass-through between them, and a big bathroom with a beautiful tub, and an actual closet. She’s living the dream. Sure, it’s all still about the size of her childhood bedroom growing up, but for New York, it’s definitely dream-like. It’s at least dream-adjacent.

She’s also currently harboring a fugitive.

And, apparently, a superstrong private investigator.

“Are you guys day drinking?” she asks, opening the door to find Frank and Jess on the couch with glasses of whiskey on the coffee table in front of them.

“I get enough of this from Trish,” Jessica gripes, holding up a glass. “Look, we made one for you! And, uh. You shoulda seen how hard he blushed when you talked about him on the radio.”

Frank glares wordlessly at Jessica, who grins that savage grin of hers in reply. But there’s a softness to it too. Jessica may think she’s fooling everyone with that cynical sneer, but Karen knows how much she likes them. And even though Jessica can be a rough friend to have, Karen’s used to rough friends. She takes the glass and settles on the couch next to Frank, whose arm moves to settle around her shoulders automatically.

“Think that was smart? Talking about me the way you did?” he asks.

“I could have said a lot more. Thought I was being pretty subtle, actually.”

“Bambi has a point. She could’ve said a lot more. Lotta people in this city who’d jump on you if they had the chance. She coulda staked her claim in front of Trish Talk’s audience. Listening to that? Unless you already knew she was banging The Punisher, I don’t think you could figure it out. Karen’ll have to be beating people off you with a stick all over again once you’re freed from this apartment. I guess I could help. Might be more effective.”

“Already a little drunk, huh?” Karen asks, but she throws back the whiskey all the same, and Frank chuckles as he tightens his arm around her.

It’s not easy for Frank to take breaks like this. She knows it sends his mind scrambling, scattering, screaming for release. He’s been waking up gasping and shaking a lot more often. Sometimes he doesn’t wake up at all, just struggles through a nightmare she wishes she could fight off for him. But she knows, too, that it’s easier when she’s here. Killing is the only thing that relieves him, but she knows that she soothes him. Makes it easier to bear.

It’s not everything. But it’s a nice feeling, knowing she can help just by smiling at him. Just by existing.

“Don’t quite think there are so many people lining up as all that,” Frank says.

“Oh please, shut up,” Jessica groans. “You sound like Trish. All that false fucking modesty. You know you’re a babe.”

Frank makes a face and looks at Karen, who laughs hard, surprised.

“Don’t look at me!” she exclaims. “You know exactly how I feel about it.”

“Yeah, but you’re…different,” Frank protests lamely. Karen’s stomach does a low little flip, because he sounds so _peaceful_. So casual. It’s one of those sad moments when he seems most like the Frank Castle who died in Central Park.

“Compelling argument,” she teases.

“You know what I mean.”

“I know what he means,” Jessica says warmly. “You _are_ kinda weird, Bambi. You’re all…turned on by The Punisher.”

“Fuck you, Jessica. I’m fantastic,” Karen says, getting up from the couch and heading to the coat rack near the front door, taking off her jacket as she goes. Jessica laughs, purposefully obnoxious, pointing at the dress.

“Karen,” Frank says warningly.

“I was being polite! Trish went through all the trouble of getting it for me, and I only wore it once!”

“Yeah, to the badass rescue of a man who’s wanted dead by, like, almost everyone,” Jess points out.

“Not almost everyone,” Karen says softly, and Jess tilts her head a little in acknowledgement of that.

“Yeah, okay. Most of Trish’s callers seemed to like him. Though she may have set them up.”

“Nope,” Karen says, pleased. “You won’t trick me. New York loves him.”

Frank protests that with a harsh scoff, and Jess answers with something derisive and mocking, but Karen ignores them both, heading into the bedroom to change back into something that doesn’t make Frank so uncomfortable.

He likes the dress. She knows he likes the dress from the way his eyes darken when she wears it, from the way he curls his fingers into fists to keep himself from reaching out and touching it. But she knows it makes him miserable, too, to think of the way she had been willing to risk so much for him. They’ve talked around Jigsaw’s death instead of getting right to it. It hangs between them sometimes, when Frank is at his darkest, when he worries that he’s corrupted her, and she knows that he spends too much time thinking about it. But he’s _trying_ , and she knows that he’ll figure it out one day: she isn’t going anywhere. She would kill a hundred Jigsaws for him. And that’s _okay_. That’s her choice as much as being with Frank is her choice, as much as being a reporter is her choice.

She hears him in the doorway behind her as she’s taking off her boots, and she turns to watch him limp in. His knee is healing fast, but it still looks excruciating when he walks. It’s the only thing they’ve argued about in the past few weeks. She wishes he’d just learn to sit. But she isn’t in the arguing mood, so she just takes off her earrings and puts them in the jewelry dish on her dresser.

Frank crosses the room to her, slides his hand over the skull on her stomach the way he did back in the warehouse.

“Still can’t believe you wore this,” he murmurs, and she knows he’s talking about when she went to fight Jigsaw.

“Why not?” she asks. “It’s a nice dress.”

“It’s a nice dress,” he agrees, stepping back so he can look down at it.

“You feeling okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just goin’ a little stir crazy I guess.”

“Well, I talked to Claire. She says you can start walking Max again, as long as I’m with you or you agree to use a cane. So…as long as I’m with you. Trish is gonna bring him over later with Malcolm. Have a little celebration, I guess.”

He looks relieved at that. An excuse to get out. Plus an excuse to get Max back; he hadn’t been happy when Claire told him that they should keep the dog with Trish for the early stages of his recovery.

“I don’t know how to say thank you to you,” he says. “All the shit you been doin’.”

“You don’t have to thank me. That’s what this is.”

“I know. I know. It’s just not…I’m not used to it yet.”

He’s not used to it. Not used to kindness in his new life. She cups his cheek in one hand the way she knows he likes. Knows he likes it because he always moves into it automatically, reflexively, the way Max does when you scratch him under the chin. She kisses him on the scar of his bullet wound. The one that almost killed him.

“You’ll get used to it,” she promises. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s almost a guarantee at this point that he’ll say she _should_. Or that she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Or that she’d be better off without him. He won’t leave – _that_ hasn’t been threatened since the night he realized she wasn’t pregnant and that he had hurt her by staying away – but he’ll tell her she should. It’s almost a script.

But he doesn’t.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. Kisses her. It’s soft and sweet. Tender, even. Delicate. “I’m startin’ to figure that out.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Took you long enough. Now go out there and chaperone your guest.”

“ _My_ guest, huh?”

“She was keeping _you_ company, babe.”

“Babe, huh?”

“Trying it out.”

“Feel weird?”

She smiles at him. Feels her heartbeat quickening as she takes in his face, bruises faded almost to nothing now. Weird how love can make things change without changing them at all. When she saw his face in the hospital the first time, even the second time, she was so afraid. But now she looks at it, looks at him, and sees the man she loves. Sees someone she has proven now, to herself and to everyone, she would kill to protect.

“Nope,” she says. “Feels right.”

Frank gives her another grin before he limps back down the hall to the living room. Karen opens her closet door and looks at herself in the full length mirror. Looks at the slinky black dress with the spray painted skull. Can’t stop smiling.

She takes off the dress and reaches into the closet. Frank’s vest is hanging in one corner, and she makes room, sliding the dress onto the hanger next to it.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says to herself, to The Punisher’s vest. To the world at large. To Matt, who’s probably nearby, knowing him.

No matter what happens. No matter who tries to come between them. This is her choice. _He_ is her choice. And she will fight like hell to protect him.

She gets dressed in casual clothes, turns the light off, closes the door behind her. Walks down the hall just as the doorbell rings. Trish, Malcolm, and Max, probably. Maybe Foggy or Matt or Elektra. Claire. That there are so many options now when only a few months ago she was so sure there was no one in the world she could call a friend, it’s enough to set her heart on fire.

She presses the button to let them up, turns to watch Jessica and Frank arguing about something good-naturedly. And she loves. She loves all of it. Her whole heart swells with it. Karen Page has always been someone with so much love to give the world, and finally, _finally_ she has been given an outlet to show it. Living with a fugitive. Surrounded by dangerous vigilantes. Constantly in danger. She has never, in all her life, been more content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who stuck with me through this whole thing! This is technically not the last story in this series, but given how long it took me to get this one out despite having the first draft already written months before I started posting, I'll wait until I've actually edited the whole thing before I start posting this time!


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